Postcards promoting non-hos Pitality activities
A recent feature in this pictorial series showcased how those earlier businesses that did not target the hospitality markets weaponised postcards to promote their trade.
Hotels, restaurants, tour operators and other touristoriented activities by far account for the bulk of postcard publicity. But even other commercial and non-commercial genres sometimes resorted to promotion by postcard. This spread will take a cursory look at later advertising for non-hospitality activities.
By the time Independence had energised a major tourist boom, postcards intended for promotion had assumed a relatively
nd standard format – in full colour, generally with ‘composite’ multiple photographic images rather than creative artwork, the name quite prominently displayed on the front and, occasionally, some info, mostly contact details, on the back.
Non-commercial advertising ranged quite widely – witness some postcards publicising Mount St Joseph Retreat House
in Tarġa Gap, Mosta, anti-drug abuse propaganda issued by Aġenzija Sedqa, founded 30 years ago in 1994, and that wonderous and unrepeatable vanity project, the Mystique complex, in Madliena, the dreams in bricks and mortar of the late visionary Marquis Joe Scicluna, now so sadly abandoned and vandalised.
The main Maltese postcard publishers saw to the major part of the production of these niche promotional tools instruments. These include established staples like the doyen of Maltese postcard publicity, David Moore, Perfecta Advertising, Anatlus (Wilfred Sultana & Associates Co. Ltd),and Vulcan Advertising. Many appear to be self-published or are identified only by
the printers, like Interprint, Union Press, Penprint.
Compared to other mainstream ‘Having a wonderful holiday in Malta, weather really lovely, wish you were here’ postcards, rather few of these promotion cards can be found postally used. Those that survive were mostly kept as souvenirs or curios rather than used to send messages.