Trade card for Samuel P. Avery's Fine Art Room
The pattern
This still is filed under Keepable trade card.
Define
A small card people keep (pretty, useful, or collectible) that carries the brand after the encounter.
Mechanism
Retention object. The gift is the media. Recall is paid for by usefulness or delight, not by repetition.
Verdict
We can put a physical or digital keepable in someone's pocket and they will not throw it away.
Why it works
The card doubles as a sample of the merchandise - an original etching handed over free advertises the dealer's stock in trade better than any description of it. The scene is a genre picture of the sale itself, so the prospect sees the experience he is being invited to buy, with two surrogate customers already in the room. Cruikshank puts his own name, age and date on the tablecloth inside the picture, which converts the whole card into a signed work and borrows his fame for Avery's judgment. Name at the top, the transaction in the middle, address at the bottom is a clean three-band hierarchy that leaves the ask as the last thing the eye crosses.
Steal this when
Your product is taste or judgment and cannot be listed as features - give away a specimen of the work itself and show a client being served inside it.