If ever there is a Promotions Hall of Fame, a corner should be reserved for Hulbert Harrington Warner, a businessman who suffered from kidney trouble.
He bought the rights to the potion that cured him — a mixture of alcohol, glycerin, saltpeter and water — and started marketing it in 1879 as Warner’s Safe Cure and Kidney Cure.
The preparation was backed with almost a million dollars a year in advertising, a staggering budget for that time. A reporter who visited the Rochester, NY headquarters noted that the ad department was the most important part of the company.
Much of this money went into brand advertising in newspapers. But a large amount was spent on almanacs, millions of which were distributed in drugstores and by mail.
Each edition was filled with puzzles and promotions.
In one, readers were invited to send $1 and a urine sample for a “free treatment by mail.” (The rival Swamp Root company had tried this too, but it backfired when pranksters sent a vial of horse urine, identifying it as that of a Caucasian male.)
In another, they were asked to find misspelled words in the almanac, “Negro dialect excluded.”
The prize? “A Finely Colored Map of the Untied States or a copy of Warner’s Safe Cook Book.”
The 1885 booklet also reported a conversation on a new device.
A Talk by Telephone
Hello! What is it?
Please connect the telephone with Warner’s Safe Remedies Establishment.
Hello! Who is it? What’s wanted?
I want to ask you something about your pamphlet, your establishment, kidney disease, and lots of other things.
Whew! Tut, tut, tut — louder! I can only just hear you. Before we get through with this subject, we would burn the wires off.
All this was wildly effective. The firm generated sales of $9 million in seven years, with a profit of around $3 million.
Warner sold the business in 1889, but declared personal bankruptcy a few years later. Sadly, he was never able to bounce back. But he lived to the age of 81, his products doubtless contributing to his longevity.
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