P. T. BARNUM AND THE RINGLING BROTHERS
Phineas Taylor Barnum set the stage in the 1800s for using the out-
rageous and bizarre in attracting attention to his enterprises. He
was responsible for developing methods of advertising and pro-
motion that became known as ballyhoo,a term synonymous with
attention getting. Businesses around the world, perhaps without
realizing it, still employ his principles of entertainment, excite-
ment, and enterprise. And they profit from it. Barnum created his
own “stars” and then promoted them through advertising, flyers,
and posters as he brought them to town. He was also a pioneer in
the concept of public displays of his attractions, building his rep-
utation and profits through museums and road shows. Among his
feature attractions were General Tom Thumb (the world’s smallest
human), Jumbo (the world’s largest elephant), and the golden-
voiced Jenny Lind (the Swedish Nightingale), whom he intro-
duced to American audiences with great fanfare in the 1850s.
It’s interesting to note that his promotions left a permanent im-
pression on the American lexicon. In addition to his Jumbo ele-
phant attraction was a “genuine” white elephant named Toung
Taloung. Barnum spent a fortune trying to convince audiences that
Toung was not a fake, to little success. To this day, the term “jumbo”
connotes bigness. And “white elephant” defines anything that is
expensive to maintain, but yields little or no profitable results.
He and his partner, James A. Bailey, took his menagerie on the
road, combining the wild animals with other circus acts. They
were convinced that success lay in taking the enterprise to the
people rather than waiting for audiences to find their “Greatest
Show on Earth.” The partners took this approach to a fine art of
promotion and marketing after merging with the Ringling Broth-
ers Circus in 1919. They built circus wagons for the tour, gaily
painted with promises of amazing feats and attractions. In time,
they began loading their wagons onto railway cars and then began
purchasing freight cars themselves, again painting them in bold
colors so no one could mistake the fact that the circus was
coming.
Barnum and Bailey were already practicing target marketing,
although the term had not been invented at that time. They knew
that the communities their show visited needed to know that en-
tertainment was on the way, that excitement was right around
the bend!6 Chapter 1 Introduction to Event Marketing