Part 19

The other half of the battle of slide advertising is selecting the most suitable theater. If you are situated in a residential section, and you decide upon a downtown theater for your announcement, you are paying for scattered circulation.

The exhibitor also rates the advertising value of his house at a much higher figure, and, as you draw the bulk of your trade from the surrounding blocks, it is advisable to pick out a local photoplay theater.

Motion-picture theaters may be grouped into two divisions. One is the nickeldrome which has been converted from an empty store, and seldom accompanies more than five hundred. It usually shows the oldest films and caters for a cheap patronage. This class of show is on the decline.

Although the motion-picture theater is a democratic institution, the well-to-do working classes prefer to patronize the classy building which has been exclusively erected for motion-picture entertainments. It is not because they refuse to associate with their poor brothers and sisters; quality is the deciding factor. For five or ten cents more they see a longer and better program, amid more comfortable surroundings.

So far, so good; the rest depends on the managerial policy. The best way to discover this is to visit a desirable theater as an ordinary patron. If you note your trade is already represented on the screen, then the theater is unavailable for the time being.

This may strike you as peculiar, since no newspaper grants a monopoly in one particular trade, but it is the custom in slide advertising. The healthiness of a newspaper may be judged by the volume of advertising it carries, but, in so far as the photoplay is concerned, the fewer the slides the better. Time is precious, and, if the exhibitor is to give each advertiser the service he pays for, he can only do so when the slides do not exceed one dozen. When the number is more, the operator usually whips each off before spectators are able to read it.

After you have satisfied yourself on all these things, you can take the matter up with the exhibitor. You may frown upon a six months’ contract, but the rental, which will vary from $5 to $10 per month, according to size and location of theater, will work out more cheaply than on the weekly basis. It will also afford you protection in that your competitor can not put one over. Another thing, the public may only give your first slides the once over, but the constant seeing of your name will go right home.

The slide manufacturers find that there is so much correspondence involved in executing orders of less than one dollar that they prefer they be given to the exhibitor, who orders slides in quantities.

XXXVI.

HANDLING THE ANTI-AD. SLIDE EXHIBITOR

Have you ever had legitimate advertising turned down by a newspaper? I don’t suppose this rare experience has fallen to your lot, so it is perhaps as well if I acquaint you with the conditions that exist in the motion-picture theater advertising field.

The motion picture has not reached maturity, and consequently some branches of the industry are not so far advanced as others. In the former category comes slide advertising.

There are some exhibitors who throw up their hands at the very mention of slide advertising, yet the strange part about it is that they themselves can not get along without this excellent form of publicity. They run a bunch of slides on the screen pertaining to current attractions and house announcements. These occupy the screen for five minutes or more, and are repeated at every performance for fully one week.

It is not necessary to advertise productions so far in advance, and this would allow “foreign” advertising to have a look in, but this type of exhibitor generally refuses to listen to reason. And the worse still is the fact that he knows he has the upper hand of you.

Let me assume that you are located in a neighborhood section, which is catered for by one photoplay theater. There may be another in the next section, but, however desirable this theater, it will not produce so much business, for it is a trait of Americans not to walk further than is necessary.

If the exhibitor on your block favors slide advertising, the rest is easy, but if he is opposed to it, it is up to you to assume a resourceful attitude.

The chances are that this exhibitor issues a house organ of some sort, for which he is prepared to accept advertising from desirable local stores. Here, then, is your opportunity. If you have ever glanced over a slide catalogue, you will agree with me that slides, when reproduced in black and white, make dandy press advertisements.

Many dealers who believe in attractive slide announcements undo all their good work by following same up by stereotyped ads. in the theater house organ. It is, of course, a great advantage to have the former already prepared by expert advertising men, so the stock slide in the latter capacity would seem to leave little to be desired.

Contract for, say, three inches of space weekly, with weekly change of copy, for which purpose a suitable stock slide should be selected. Your slide manufacturer will willingly grant you permission to have cuts made of his slides and reproduce them, if you give him the credit. Your ad. will stand out prominently from the rest, and readers will admire its all-round excellence.

The question now arises as to what use you are to make of the slide. If there is another theater within easy walking distance, it would do no harm to arrange for a weekly change of slides. Between the two, you should hit the mark.

XXXVII.

HAVING YOUR MOVIE AD. SLIDES SHOWN TO THE BEST ADVANTAGE

Watching motion-picture screens is my hobby, and, incidentally, my business. Four times a week do I combine business with pleasure, and it is these on-the-spot investigations that have given me good grounds for asserting that the average exhibitor does not appreciate the fact that there is an art in showing your slides to the best possible advantage. He seems to imagine that they can be thrown in any slipshod way, so long as he can claim to have shown them according to arrangement.

He does not realize that he is under an obligation to you, represented on his theater screen by paid advertising. Were the local paper you favor to print your ad. full of typographical errors and badly blend the type faces, or place your ad. in the most inconspicuous portion of the paper, you would, naturally, be offended and be likely to transfer your advertising account to the rival publication. This is why I advise you and your friends to frequent the theater that carries your advertising and see if you are getting value for your money.

At a certain motion-picture theater in Brooklyn about thirty slides are shown at the end of every performance. You have only got to look at the faces of the spectators to realize the resentment caused by the bad practice. That number of slides at one time is entirely too many. The exhibitor of this type is attempting to cram the stuff down the necks of his patrons, whereas he should accomplish it in an unforced manner. The latter is easily gotten over by showing only several slides at the end of each reel. They are thus spread out and have a far greater chance of sinking in, because picture-play-goers are not called upon to memorize a lot at one gulp, so to speak. In this way the patience of patrons is not overtaxed. The exhibitor can never tell, when he puts over his all-at-a-time slide stunt, whether or not he is sending spectators away to his competitor a few blocks up the street. I have personally known exhibitors who have been unable to account for the falling off of attendance, yet the whole root of the trouble was the slide dodge.

It is typically American to shirk telling openly anything that displeases, so that offended patron says nothing and is never seen inside the theater again. This rebounds on you, for these offended folks become your mortal enemy and lay the blame on the ads. themselves.

Even at those halls that follow the commendable methods outlined, spectators often see the entire performance through without witnessing all the slides. The mistake made by the exhibitor in this case is to project one of his own slides first to tell what the next photoplay will be. This serves to reveal to patrons that they have seen the reels over once, so they rise and leave the show right then. Instead, why not tell your exhibitor to hold back this condemning slide until the last, in order to have the audience sit out the others? Besides, the one advantage of this form of advertising is that there is no competition in commanding attention simultaneously. Each slide is projected separately, and it is advisable, if only for the reason stated, to run only a few at a time instead of the whole bunch.

As the provider of this extra revenue for the movie showman, it is up to you to see adequate treatment for your investment.