Marketing to Moviegoers

1 Creative Strategy

 

Prepared for the first almost-free parliamentary elections in Poland in 1989, the (political) poster shows Gary Cooper as the lonely sheriff in the American Western High Noon. Under the headline “At High Noon” runs the red Solidarity banner and the date—June 4, 1989—of the poll. . . . Cowboys in Western clothes had become a powerful symbol for Poles. Cowboys fight for justice, fight against evil, and fight for freedom. . . . Solidarity trounced the Communists in that election.

Lech Walesa, President of Poland, 1990–1995

Movie ads can be powerful. Poland’s insular communist party mocked the Solidarity poster of 1989 by portraying cowboys as reckless and an unwanted foreign intrusion, not understanding that the country’s ...