Postcards on the Edge
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Johnson and McCabe first saw postcard advertising in Europe, where the practice became popular in the early 90s: create a catchy visual image, reproduce it on thousands of cards with contact information on the back, put 20 different cards in a rack, and place the racks where people will take the cards. Voila–advertising. Johnson and McCabe helped introduce the cards in Chicago when they started On the House in 1994, offering artists, small businesses, cultural institutions, and national clients a relatively inexpensive way to advertise. The concept caught on not only with clients but with scores of restaurants: since 1994 Johnson and McCabe have expanded their local roster from 75 to about 175, offering each restaurant several thousand cards printed with its own ads as an incentive to display the racks.
In 1995 On the House joined forces with Five Finger and Pik-Nik. Initially the companies maintained their separate identities and ownership, but as the months passed, all three recognized the need to establish a common identity. That fall the three companies agreed on the name GoCard, and Five Finger president Alan Wolan filed a trademark application for the name. But the name was about all they had in common. While GoCard/Chicago continued to show a strong interest in local, low-margin advertisers, Wolan took off after major national clients. He explains, “You charge eight cents a card and print millions of postcards.”
The two partners also claim that Hagen, Wolan’s representative, told restaurateurs that GoCard/Chicago was going out of business and that Wolan’s operation would be taking over for it. Wolan vehemently denies any such tactics. “I would immediately fire anyone who did that,” he says. But Sergio Sanchez, general manager of the Twisted Lizard restaurant at Sheffield and Armitage, insists that Wolan’s representative did make such statements. “They said they were the original GoCard and were going to take the place of GoCard/Chicago,” he says. Johnson and McCabe claim they’ve been forced to call all their restaurant partners to explain the situation.
