Keepable trade card

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 carries no product, no price and no argument, only a joke: the seller buys recall with an image the household will keep and pass around. The type block sits in the empty upper-left quadrant of the picture, so the imprint reads as part of the scene rather than a caption stuck on it, and the eye crosses the firm name on the way to the gag. The Pierrot toddlers and the enraged conductor are themselves a demonstration of the merchandise category, novelties and toys, without ever naming an item, which lets one printed card cover a whole shifting stock list.

The big idea

A holiday novelty shop hands out a comic scene worth keeping: three little Pierrots singing while their music master clutches his ear, with the shop's name above.

The offer

Holiday novelties at Alex. M. Hays & Co., 31 Union Square. No items, prices or terms are named.

Lines from the ad

NOVELTIES FOR THE HOLIDAYS

ALEXr. M. HAYS & Co.

31, UNION SQUARE

Steal this when

Use this when your catalogue changes constantly and a specific product claim would date the piece, but you need the brand name in the buyer's hand. It is also the right structure for a giveaway, insert or card whose only job is to be kept rather than read.

The emotion

Written to Amusement. It makes the Avoid mistake.

The gag of three little Pierrots singing while their music master clutches his ear works with no product in it; only the shop's name sits above, and no novelty is named.