Willimantic Linen Co. 'America ahead' 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 whole card turns on one pun: hobby means both a pastime and a hobby-horse, so the joke and the product are the same object. Because the spool has been enlarged to the size of a horse, the pack shot is unavoidable and the label stays readable at card size, which is the actual job in a category where shoppers had to ask for a brand by name at the counter. The race frame supplies rank without an argument, the brand is simply in front and everyone else is behind. Chromolithographic colour made these cards worth keeping and pasting in albums, so the advertiser bought repeat exposure rather than a single impression.
Steal this when
Use this when your product is a small commodity component that buyers must request by name, and the brand mark on the pack is the only asset you have. Blow the pack up to absurd scale inside a scene that carries a pun, and let the label do the selling.