While I was in the bus today I wondered since when are street ads a thing. I can imagine that there might have been some banners in the fachade of the building or even in the street but close to the actual shop. But were they like our kind of ads? Meaning: did they have catchy sentence, were they placed all over the place, did the shop owners actually care to have them, etc.? Thanks.
Aha! What a fun topic! For me, this one is gonna go back....well, a couple of millenia, but I hope you'll be alright with that. I can't speak much to advertisement later than the Roman period, but advertisement in the Roman city is a wonderful thing in itself!
Some notes before we start: Shorthand in the Latin quotes. Parentheses () indicate that I'm expanding on a shorthand - so if I have a D M, I'll expand it to D(is) M(anibus). Brackets [] are letters that are no longer extant, but we know ought to be there.
Obviously, as you might imagine, we don't have much of that left. What we do have is generally categorized in a field called "epigraphy" - the study of stuff that's written on stuff. The absolute most common unit of study here is the generic gravestone. For an easy example of this, there's an online database of Latin inscription (not 100% complete, but not bad!) that's mostly only browsable if you're reasonably fluent in Latin. There are also mistakes here and there, but again - only a big issue if you're in the field. The above reads:
D(is) M(anibus) / T(ito) Fl(avio) Vero Aug(usti) / lib(erto) tab(ulario) rat(ionis) / aquarior(um) co(n)/iugi bene me/renti Octa/via Thetis fecit
which translates toooo
To the departed spirits, Octavia Thetis made this for her well deserving husband, Titus Flavius Vero, freedman of Augustus, scribe of the regulation of the water supply.
But that's a tangent I'll address later. For now, let's go to specific shop signs, 'cause that's what it looks like you're looking for! Luckily, there are a couple that are extant that are very clear as to what they're doing. They say so! Now, if you'll do me a favour and follow that link, it'll show you a picture of a page from a book that's on my desk^1 that I'm supposed to be actively reading right now instead of browsing reddit. The page is mostly self explanatory: the inscription, written in both Latin and Greek, has a large, bold, eye catching note at the top, which in both Greek and Latin translates directly to: "INSCRIPTIONS HERE." The rest of the details follow in close order (and in smaller text, since we already have your attention). The grammar and spelling is....imperfect at best, but you definitely know what's going on inside and how nice they can make things (that stone is OLD and it still looks good). Here's another one, from Rome this time!. That one employs another cheeky way of grabbing the eye. See the DM at the top? That's the universal marker for "gravestone" (see above, the Dis Manibus/To the departed spirits). So that'd catch the eye, and following up it says:
D M / titulos scri/bendos vel/ si quid o[pe]/ris marmor/ari opus fu/erit hic ha/bes
or, in translation...
To the departed spirits! You can get inscriptions written here or any other sort of marble work you need done!
Nice and blatant there ;) Regarding other shop signs, there's one that might be a shop sign for poultry from Ostia, but the issue is that there's no text there - it could just as easily be a funerary inscription. We're not entirely sure.
On to other forms of advertisement, known as the programmata! These generally take the form of things like graffiti and pottery stamps. This general category of epigraphy is heavily focused on Pompeii/Herculaneum, mostly because of preservation.^2 Oftentimes, these were related to elections and generally consist of the candidate's name (or initials) and the office for which he's running. This is followed by a bunch of abbreviations, such as OVF (oro vos faciatis - I ask that you make [insert name] a [insert office]), VB (virum bonum - "good dude"), or DRP (dignum rei publicae - worthy of the republic). Sometimes these have the supporter who sponsored said programmata, sometimes not. Generally, they take a format that looks something like this:
L(ucium) P(opidium) S(ecundum) Aed(ilem) O(ro) V(os) F(aciatis) D(ignum) R(ei) P(ublicae) Successa Rog(at) | CIL 4.1062
or...
Successa asks that you make Lucius Popidius Secundus, worthy of the Republic, an aedile. nota bene: the Latin is ten ways of hilariously messy here, but this is what it's saying. Essentially.
The graffiti would have just been written on walls in various locations, while pottery stamps would have been put on...well....pottery. Bowls, cups, plates, roof tiles, amphorae...you get the idea. If someone could pay a tiny bit to get their candidate's name out there, it was gonna happen.
Finally! A form of advertisement that you might not have been intending, but that I feel like rambling about anyway ;) Inscriptions that were put out as announcements! Advertisements that you might not think of as such, but...well...advertise to the people what's up. One fun such piece is actually a glorious pain in the ass to read because it's so damn old: the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus. Nope, I'm not translating the whole thing (again x.x) because it's hella long, but it essentially is a decree from the Senate banning the Bacchanalia throughout all of Italy. It's a pretty gigantic step to snuff out any hint of this kinda stuff, which is pretty interesting because the next time such a stance was taken with regards to religion was with respect to some crucified sophist in Palestine.
The other fantastic piece of advertisement (besides the inevitable signatures of "I made this" on every piece of Roman architecture ever), that I love to talk about is Augustus' Res Gestae, the only surviving copies of which were written, first on massive bronze columns outside his tomb (lost), and then all over the temples of the Roman Empire. It's a hilariously self-promoting piece, obviously exaggerates, very specifically skips over anything negative that he did, and, in short, makes him out to be practically perfect in every way. You heard it here, Gussie = Mary Poppins. And if you don't think that's advertisement, then I'm disappointed.
Hope this helps you out!
Said book is the Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy, edited by Christer Bruun and Jonathan Edmondson. I VERY highly recommend this if you're interested in Roman epigraphy, as the price tag is actually manageable for such a tome. Or you could just use the library, that works too.
This quick intro on programmata is taken from Women and elections in Pompeii by Liisa Savunen.
Follow up question/example: When I was at Herculaneum, which in the famous eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD was destroyed and preserved, I remember seeing adverts as you describe. I remember it was an advert in big red script outside of a street cafe or bakery of some sort. This might be a good example to use if someone could provide further context of what and how it was advertising the sponsor.
