Though there were far fewer service/materials advertisements in this 1917 issue of Moving Picture World than would be found in issues of later periodicals directed at film exhibitors, this small ad for “Cico Toodles” stands out. 

The elaborate viral marketing plan devised by Cahill-Igoe was explained in a 1917 issue of Exhibitors Herald 

Mr. Cico Toodles, who has been appearing in the
“Herald’s” advertising columns lately, with a word or two declaring
his intention of coming in and settling down amongst us, has arrived. And this
is the message he brings:
He hails from the Cahill-Igoe Company, with whom you are
acquainted. His business is to help the exhibitor through the summer, by
directing a forceful appeal to the children of the nation and through them to
the grown folks.

His method is this: the Cahill-Igoe Company have designed a
series of thirty cards, which are known as Cico Toodles cards. Each one of them
contains a verse and an accompanying illustration. The verse is one of the well
known Mother Goose rhymes  so arranged
that it appeals to the reader to hasten to the nearest film show. The picture
has a like appeal.

There is room on the face of the card for the theater name
and the back has been left blank for the weekly program or for any special announcement
the theater may care to make.

The distribution plan on Cico Toodles cards as a program is
this: those who receive them will save them. To further instill this saving
idea into the public’s mind, albums have been designed, just large enough to
hold the entire set of thirty. These can be purchased at a low price by the
exhibitor and distributed or sold.

In a number of tests in different neighborhoods of Chicago
the Cico cards have proved their popularity beyond even the expectations of the
firm publishing them. The firm is extremely confident that it has hit upon  a novelty that will prove immensely  popular not only among exhibitors but with the
public.

(credit: American Theatre Architecture Archive, Theatre Historical Society of America)