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Marketing the Wild West with sea rescue

Marketing Buffalo Bill’s Wild West

Wild West marketing with posters
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West lithograph poster, 1894, New York City. Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming, USA. Museum purchase. 1.69.20

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West traveled for some 30 years, both in the U.S. and in Europe. As with all such extravaganzas, marketing was a given. Aside from so-called “earned media” in the popular press, promotional posters—similar to the billboards of today—advertised all that audiences would see within the show’s arena. Fortunately, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West has dozens of these posters for the 21st century audience to peruse.

Wild West marketing with football
Football on horses. French lithographic poster of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, 1905. Museum purchase. 1.69.2172

The posters depicted reenactments of historical events like Custer’s Last Stand and the Pine Ridge Peace Treaty of 1891. Other acts included an attack on the Deadwood Stage, Battle of Summit Springs, Great Train Robbery, and the Pony Express. Still other posters focused on the horse-riding demonstrations by Cossacks, vaqueros, gauchos, and Arabs.

And just to be sure that everyone knew the show was more than a flash-in-the-pan, a handful of posters boasted the dignitaries who had seen the show. Yes, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was a name-dropper—Kings and Queens (including Queen Victoria); Prince and Princess of Wales; assorted duchesses, princesses, and countesses; and the U.S. Generals under which Cody had served. Humor and fun were subjects of other posters, too, including a football game played with horses. The idea was that people would see a poster and simply have to shell out their 50¢ for the show; they certainly didn’t want to be the only people in town who hadn’t seen Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

I recently learned about two other posters in which Buffalo Bill used his Wild West to perform public service. A Marine Feature in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West actually depicts a sea rescue, but on dry land! A man stands high on a platform much like the mast of a ship. A cannon shoots a line in his direction, and then the men on the “ground” use a pulley affair to transfer the “breeches buoy” that will carry the rescue-ee back to land. The whole thing reminded me of today’s zip line.

Marketing the Wild West with sea rescue
Marketing the Wild West with sea rescue: Sea rescue drill lithographic poster, date unknown. From Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. 1.69.2424. 

Another poster, titled Preparedness, featured the U.S. Field Artillery in “expert [team] driving and whirlwind battery drills.” Buffalo Bill wanted to showcase the readiness of America’s military—just like some present-day world leaders .

Buffalo Bill's Wild West: Military Preparedness
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Military Preparedness: Military pageant lithographic poster, 1926. From Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. Museum purchase. 1.69.2035

      

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Marguerite House avatar

Marguerite House

Marguerite House served as the Center of the West’s Acting Director of Public Relations until her retirement at the end of 2018, and as editor of its member magazine, Points West, through May 2019. Following a seven-year stint as Business Manager for the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce, Marguerite moved “across the street” to the Center in 1999. She then held five different positions in three of the Center’s four divisions, landing in PR in 2005. “I think that [gave] me all kinds of perspectives for our readers,” she says. She enjoys writing (especially a weekly column for the local newspaper called “On the House”), cooking, and spending time with her six grandkids.

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