Philly Town 76
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Philly Town T-Shirt Co. was created in 1976 for tee shirt enthusiasts to celebrate the Bicentennial. Nothing in the stores at that time was creative or rebellious. There were Liberty Bells, Pipe & Drum Marchers and Independence Hall prints but nothing we thought was cool enough for the time. We were into history but also into music, bands and the left-over Hippy culture. Boogie Ben, playing his lightning powered electric guitar, was born. We formed a legal S-Corp partnership through a relative at a large Philadelphia Law Firm, invested what little money we had and created our start up. |
Finding the right printers and artists was our first task, and we were lucky to find some good ones in our local Delco neighborhood. We experimented with print designs, going from a one-color, two-sided graphic to a multi-colored front print. The people we found and worked with became lifelong friends. Our friends, relatives, and in-laws all pitched in to fold and distribute shirts for us. We hit the streets.
At the start, we just set up card tables on a corner and hawked our wares. Having no mercantile license, in the beginning, we ran away, bargained, or congealed law enforcement by donating shirts to them. But once the word got out, the police were all coming to hassle us so they could get a shirt, too. We got a license and put a stop to that.
In 1976, all the major sports had their All-Star games in Philly. We were outside on a cold January day off Broad Street for the NHL All-Star game. There were seven Flyers on the Campbell Conference All-Star Team, and quite a few bought our shirts when they saw us shivering in the dark parking lot. Bobby Clark, Gary Dornhoefer, and even an Islander, Denis Potvin, bought some. It wasn’t much warmer on February 3rd when the NBA All-Stars came to the Philadelphia Spectrum. We didn’t get any players to buy, but Brent Musburger bought some kid sizes for his family, and by then, a lot more fans were buying.
It was much warmer on June 12th, when we set up shop for the "Spirit of Summer 76" Concert, where Yes, Peter Frampton and Gary Wright performed for 105,000 people. We had hired an airplane from the Jersey shore that circled the show the whole time, dragging a giant sign reading, “Boogie on Down to Philly Town.” A lot of people thought we sponsored the show. We hit pay dirt that day and sold out our inventory.
The sign-toting airplane wasn’t our first marketing tactic. Earlier that year, I arranged with six fellow employees at a large telephone company to call a specific number when they heard an announcement over the building's PA system. I called a local radio talk show and asked if they knew where I could buy a Boogie Ben T-Shirt. The radio host didn’t know but asked his audience to call in if anyone out there knew. I made the preplanned announcement stating, “A Chevy in the parking lot had its lights on,” and at that moment, my six coconspirators used special line capacity testing equipment to each send out 50 calls at once. That’s 300 simultaneously. The radio host went nuts. Screaming that he had never seen anything like this, his board was completely lit up with incoming calls. He pleaded on air for anyone who knew anything about this T-Shirt to "PLEASE call in." I waited a minute or so, then called in and said, "I hear you’re looking for me.” I then proceeded to talk on air for quite a while with the excited host, all about the shirts, what the image looked like, what the slogan said, where you could buy them on the streets, and where you could purchase them by phone. Gonzo Advertising!
Our sales skyrocketed over the summer, selling 10,000 shirts during the celebrations. We started seeing people wearing them everywhere we went. Jim O'Brian, a famous local, fun-loving weatherman, wore one on TV while giving the forecast. One of our shirts was even buried in the "Bicentennial Time Capsule," to be resurrected in 2076.
At the start, we just set up card tables on a corner and hawked our wares. Having no mercantile license, in the beginning, we ran away, bargained, or congealed law enforcement by donating shirts to them. But once the word got out, the police were all coming to hassle us so they could get a shirt, too. We got a license and put a stop to that.
In 1976, all the major sports had their All-Star games in Philly. We were outside on a cold January day off Broad Street for the NHL All-Star game. There were seven Flyers on the Campbell Conference All-Star Team, and quite a few bought our shirts when they saw us shivering in the dark parking lot. Bobby Clark, Gary Dornhoefer, and even an Islander, Denis Potvin, bought some. It wasn’t much warmer on February 3rd when the NBA All-Stars came to the Philadelphia Spectrum. We didn’t get any players to buy, but Brent Musburger bought some kid sizes for his family, and by then, a lot more fans were buying.
It was much warmer on June 12th, when we set up shop for the "Spirit of Summer 76" Concert, where Yes, Peter Frampton and Gary Wright performed for 105,000 people. We had hired an airplane from the Jersey shore that circled the show the whole time, dragging a giant sign reading, “Boogie on Down to Philly Town.” A lot of people thought we sponsored the show. We hit pay dirt that day and sold out our inventory.
The sign-toting airplane wasn’t our first marketing tactic. Earlier that year, I arranged with six fellow employees at a large telephone company to call a specific number when they heard an announcement over the building's PA system. I called a local radio talk show and asked if they knew where I could buy a Boogie Ben T-Shirt. The radio host didn’t know but asked his audience to call in if anyone out there knew. I made the preplanned announcement stating, “A Chevy in the parking lot had its lights on,” and at that moment, my six coconspirators used special line capacity testing equipment to each send out 50 calls at once. That’s 300 simultaneously. The radio host went nuts. Screaming that he had never seen anything like this, his board was completely lit up with incoming calls. He pleaded on air for anyone who knew anything about this T-Shirt to "PLEASE call in." I waited a minute or so, then called in and said, "I hear you’re looking for me.” I then proceeded to talk on air for quite a while with the excited host, all about the shirts, what the image looked like, what the slogan said, where you could buy them on the streets, and where you could purchase them by phone. Gonzo Advertising!
Our sales skyrocketed over the summer, selling 10,000 shirts during the celebrations. We started seeing people wearing them everywhere we went. Jim O'Brian, a famous local, fun-loving weatherman, wore one on TV while giving the forecast. One of our shirts was even buried in the "Bicentennial Time Capsule," to be resurrected in 2076.
Philadelphia, PA 1976