Sometime between the end of 1910 and the first days of January 1911, a postcard arrived in Frankfurt am Main. It was addressed to E. vom Werth & Co and was sent by the staff of Kinematographische Rundschau.

Wien, 27. Dezember 1910
Herren C. vom Werth & Co., Frankfurt a.M.
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Mit gleicher Post gestatten wir uns, Ihnen unsere Kinematographische Rundschau zu übermitteln und würden Ihnen empfehlen, Ihr beigeschlossenes Inserat auch in unserem Blatte erscheinen zu lassen. Unser Blatt, das offizielle Organ des Reichsverbandes der Kinematographenbesitzer und Schausteller, ist nicht nur in Oesterreich-Ungarn und Deutschland, sondern über den ganzen Kontinent verbreitet und ist ein Erfolg fast sicher.
Wir würden Ihnen für die einmalige Einschaltung M.2.20 berechnen und gewähren bei mehrmaligen Auftrag 10 % Rabatt..
Wir bitten um Erteilung Ihrer Order auf beigebogener Karte, und zeichnen
hochachtungsvoll
Kinematographische Rundschau

The staff of Kinematographische Rundschau reached out to Werth & Co in order to attract the addressee as a customer. They intended to convince the Frankfurt-based company to place an advertisement by simply presenting one of their text based advertisements previously commissioned in a different journal. The offer came with a free copy of the Kinematographische Rundschau which was intended as a sample. The staff highlighted the customer reach that was beyond Austria-Hungary and Germany but all over the European continent. Additionally they quoted the proposed rate of Mark 2,20 for the advertisement highlighting an extra discount of 10 % for recurring bookings.

Thoughts

Apparently the editorial staff of Kinematographische Rundschau and presumably other trade journals screened competing journals for potential customers and actively engaged them to win them as new customers.

Why was the company addressed? E. vom Werth & Co was a store for photographic material and equipment located in the centre of Frankfurt am Main at Kaiserplatz 17¹ which also offered limelights for cinematographic purposes. This made them a potential customer for every film related trade journal especially in the German-speaking regions. Since the reply card is still attached to the postcard one might assume that the offer was never accepted or, if so, the reply was sent by different means.

Side-note: When referring to the practice of cold calling in Letters to V. Avril I had this particular letter in mind.

copyright

The images used are from a reproductions made by myself, the original creator of the postcard is unknown.

sources

• Schmidt, F. (1908). Kompendium der praktischen Photographie (11th ed., substantially improved). Leipzig: Nemnich Verlag. DOI: 10.11588/diglit.70407