Circus Vargas
Mark has had a long relationship with Circus Vargas that included working with every owner of the show since Mr. Vargas, himself, hired him. At one time Mark was an employee of the show, when it was the second largest touring family show in America. When Mark left employment to open his own agency, he was Vice President of Marketing and Advertising for the show and was responsible for all contract negotiations, advertising, public relations, marketing, promotions and permits. A staff of fifteen reported to him. The work on this page is a combination of things Mark worked on while employed with Circus Vargas and also work completed through his agency which contracted with us a few times over the years.
Movie/TV Appearances
Over the years we arranged for hundreds of media and consumer cross-promotions. Here are a few
Family Discounts were available for those who purchased Big G Cereals. These announcements per posted in grocery stores
Mission Tortillas had discount coupons printed on the packages and were available in stores
Special discount was available when you brought a drink cup from Diamond Shamrock stores. Both radio stations co-sponsored the promotion and ran free commercials advertising the promotion
Pepsi offered a discount coupon. This bottle hanger was on 2-liter bottles where they were sold.
Discounts were available on the sides of milk cartons. A television station was brought in as a co-sponsor and provided free commercials promoting the offer
In Chicago, discounts were printed on Big Gulp cups in 7-Eleven stores. A radio station was brought in as a co-sponsor and provided free radio commercials promoting the offer.
These were cards that were placed on newspaper racks all over town announcing a discount available in the newspaper. Both a radio station and television station provided free commercials promoting the offer.
Wonder Bread carried discounts printed on a coupon attached to their bags of bread
This is an example of a coloring contest a newspaper would run. They sold ads all around the contest and the circus gave the prizes and got promotional advertising at no charge.
We often worked with car dealerships and gave them free ticketsto give away for people who come in for test drives. In exchange, the car dealer mentioned the circus in their newspaper, radio and/or TV ads.
We would sometimes work with a charity and help raise money for a worthy cause. In this case, the Chicago Tribune Charities benefited and Circus Vargas received a great deal of promotional space.
This promotion ran in both English and Spanish on the buses in El Paso, TX. Riders would get a discount to the circus. These cards were placed inside the buses
At every location in which the circus performed, the goal was to appear on radio and television stations, in the newspaper and on-line. While there would be too many examples of the publicity appearances to list all here, these are a few of our favorites.
When the circus was set up at Navy Pier in Chicago, we thought it would be a great publicity stunt if we took the elephants for a swim in Lake Michigan. It made the front page of the Chicago Sun Times and appeared on the news on a couple of local television stations.
It's always great when you make the front page of the newspaper. This is the Star in Toronto
Here is a two page spread in the Los Angeles Times.
Sometimes a good PR opportunity falls in your lap and you have to take advantage of it. When a representative of Ringling Bros stole Circus Vargas coupons, the first thing we did was call the police. The second thing we did was call the media. And after a few days when Mr. Vargas decided not to press charges, we held a press conference and got on all the TV stations again
This is the front page of the entertainment section of the El Paso Times.
With the downturn in the economy, we recommended giving free tickets to the unemployed. It resulted in a great deal of press coverage onine, in newspapers and on TV.
Circus Vargas is often on TV News. We have booked them on numerous appearances
We negotiated many deals to bring Circus Vargas in movies or on television. We negotiated the contract for Circus Vargas to appear in the movie "Water For Elephants," and the Lifetime television program "Coming Home" in addition to other programs such as Let's Make a Deal on CBS, a development deal for a reality show and others.
This video was played on the ticket booth so people who were standing in line could get information about the show.
We made many videos for Circus Vargas. This is one of the videos we created to let fans know more about the people with the show.