Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-03-30
Many Weird Ways Of Gaining Pub
Lefty in New York.
APPEALING 10 PEOPLES CURIOSITY
Harping on a Phrase Until 1t Gets
on Ones Nerves. -
ANYTHING TO MAKE TRADE
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star
NEW YORK, March %. 1901.
The freak advertising mania has attained
| an acute and laughable development over
here. There are fertile and ingenious minds
back of the freak advertisements. The one
big and central idea in these minds seems
to be that folks can be cajoled and buff
fooned and jollied into buying any cid
thing the name and character of which
is persistently kept in the public eye.
Almost everything. from a broom to a
barouche. from a new brand of corn starch
| to a country lot, from a tanninless tea
TO treacle, from new grain foods to gar
Gen seeds and sass" is nowadays being
pushed over here by means of freak adver-
Using methods.
You can't get away from these advertise
ments. You have to see them, whether you
want to or not. The insistenceof the freak
advertisers methods stirs your resentment
and causes you to harden your soul against
the article freakishly advertised and to
VOW that you will never supnely yield to
any temptation, however great, to purchase
anything so outrageously. If humorolsly,
forced upon your attention. The freak ad-
YertiSer doesn't care what mental process
you pass through before buying his article
SO long as you buy it. He doesn't go in for
psychological analyses of the buyers minds
The placards that are stuck up in the l.
surface cars. and that litter every available
men OF wall space of the L stations, are
weird in their unintelligibleness-the origi-
nal 1nstallments of them. that is to say
For these advertising placards come in
serial form nowadays. For instance, when
you take downtown L train some morn
ing, you are astonished and puzzled to see
your car, and every station along the road
ablaze with big red signs, bearing in huge
| letters these queer words: Watch Blanco!'
Gets on Your Nerves.
Now you say to yourself as you try
to read the morning paper, who in the
deuce is Blanco? What's Blanco been do
Ing that he needs watching? Why don't
they put the cops after him IL he requires
espionage? Blanco-Blanco-of course, it's
one OF these new freak advertising lodges
but why Blanco?"
The admiration to watch Blanco!" stares
you in the face everywhere you CO. and
you find yourself muttering that you could
De much happier If Blanco were at t'other
place. Yet, for all that, you are more or
less piqued at the mystery which enwraps
Blanco, and every morning, when you 90
down town, you find yourself wondering
when the secret as to Blanco's identity is
gong to be cleared up; you almost make
bets with yourself, in nervous, irritable
sort of fashion, to whether it's going to
prove to be Blanco's whisky or Blanco's
vapor baths or Blanco's breakfast harley
or Blanco's boot polish or Blanco's what
not And you are really vastly relieved
When, after being compelled to stare at
these watch Blanor' placards for two or
three weeks at a stretch You find that thew
nave all disappeared on some fine morning
and you find that it is Blanco's best Bunk,
town butter that you have been SO franti.
caiiy requested to watch all this time-for.
by the way, even country produce Is now
In the hands of the freak advertisers,
Bill Jugsins Appears.
After voU'va cot R1opoo go ,,o,,.
you're bounded to the verge of nervous
prostration by another sign, which YOU
can't get away from by any possible means
from the minute you strike the street on
your way down town in the morning until
you YEARLY unlock the vestibule door of
your fiat in the evening This sign in
cures, in letters of all shapes sizes de-
vices and styles-from old English black
letter to modern scroll type-'Do Won
Know Bill Juggins?" After q few DAYS
Jugglns becomes an awful incubus to Won.
ougglnS becomes a milestone around your
neck. Juggins interferes with your work.
vo,, i SUCKS IN your gorge. Juggins gruels
you ike vicious Hungarian table d'hote
olnner, partaken Of at the instigation of
an experimental and idiotic friend. You
remember. yes. that you did know a bow
named Bill Juggins way back fnlet's
see-when you were playing hockey from
schooi; that he had exceedingly red hair.
ana TOUR times as many warts as he had
years to his life, and that he could, swim
as far In the "crick" with one hand tied
behind his back as you could with eight
OF Ten arms. supposing you had them-ac-
cording to himself.
YOU are perfectly we'll aware of course
that this Bill Juggins the placards arc IN
curing about can't by any possibility be
your Bill Juggins but you wonder a good
zeal ABOUT the matter, all the same, and
you nope that the Bill Juggins folks won't
keep you waiting too long before reveal
ing their hand and making showdown of
II. AFTER ABOUT month Of suspense you are
ihiorm nee, py the No. batch Of placards
that Bin Juggins doesn't amount to any-
thlng himself. personally, but that he had
been cured of the most terrific cold of his
life, and cured within less than two hours
at that. by using Kookleums Kute Koff
hure. You are a bit disappointed to find
out after all. that your particular Bin
Juggins wasn't meant. You are SO sore
about 1t, in fact, that you declare to your
sen mat II you catch cold and your very
NE depends upon your sending hot-foot
Tor an invoice Of Kookleum's Kute Koff
kure you'll go to your grave first, before
you'll yield to the wiles of a freak adyer-
tiser. who has practiced such an imposi-
ton upon you.
Aerial Publicity.
The use Of the huge box-shaped kites for
freak advertising purposes Is such an old
story over here that the kites now attract
little or no attention. and are falling into
disuse. The kite scheme was tremen-
dously worked last year. They were flown
out OF the top windows Of tall office build
tngs. and the kite strings were weighted
down with long streamers. bearing the
name of the article thus advertised.
These streamers were employed to work
up interest. like the freak placards. At
first they would simply bear the words:
Just keep an eye on this line." No matter
how strongly you'd resolve not to keep an
eye on that line. you'd find yourself invol-
UNFAIRLY looking at it every day-curiosity
being the salient characteristic Of your
makeup, as 1t is Of all of your fellows. IL
the truth were known. You would at length
be rewarded by seeing the new set Of
streamers. aerially setting forth the pro-
digious superiority Of the article advertised
over all other articles whatsoever Of a SINH
lar sort.
Some Of the new freak schemes are
unique. For instance. two small boys got
into what looked like an extremely vicious
fight with each other on a prominent 9th
avenue corner the other afternoon-thev
had carefully selected corner upon which
no cop was standing. They punched and
belabored each other, and rolled over each
other. and q big crowd gathered round
them. Then they both scrambled to their
feet: grinning. and each Of them held up