Business screen magazine (1938)

iiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiniiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiu SOUND SLIDE FILMS iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiii The range and number of business concerns successfully using the sound slide films reads like a general index to the country's best merchandisers. To a few of these concerns, as in the case of most small companies, the talking slide film has been the introductory medium with which they first began to use visual selling and training methods. For the great majority today, a constant stream of these simple and comparatively inexpensive units is rolling off the production lines! These striking advantages the talking slide film does possess: it has adaplabilily and thus can be as readily applied to the door-to-door selling job of a single individual as it is generally used in group training. It offers maximum economy — thus is available for repeated use. Production of a slide film series enables the user to schedule all-important followup meetings; to adapt selling and training programs to varied circumstances and seasons; achieves the same effective results as the continuous advertising campaign. The simplicily of the slide film which, as the elementary user knows, is merely a series of single still pictures accompanied by a recorded voice, is really its greatest single advantage. Motion and dimension are aided by the voice which accompanies each projected scene. The stop-motion effect possesses an educational force of real merit. Simplicity is again an advantage in the portabilily and ease of operation which distinguishes the slide film apparatus. The simplest device is the tiny pocket projector which uses a silent slide film; the most elaborate, a record machine weighing perhaps thirty pounds and capable of addressing an audience of a thousand or more persons. Many concerns have added another element of adaptability to their film programs with a series of slide films which accompany or supplement sound motion picture features. Thus, again, slide film sequences have been very successfully added within full-length sound motion pictures to again demonstrate the advantages in instructional values of slow-motion. ♦ Within recent weeks, the most illuminating example of the potentialities being discovered by business in its every day use of the talk slide film may be read from a letter addressed to a professional producer of such films by L. A. Kling, vicepresident of the Frank Presbrey Company, advertising agency. Mr Kling says, in part: "I have just completed a trip for the SchwitzerCummins Company. Manufacturers of Stokol Hydraulic and Silent Triplex Stokers, Furnace Units, Blowers and Home Ventilators, which I believe is a record of some kind. "In less than five weeks traveled 8800 miles . . . iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ held 21 all-day meetings before approximate!) 1500 Stokol dealers. And a very large part of our achievement can properly be credited to the showing of The Midwinter Night's Dream — the dramatized slide film which you produced for us on both bituminous and anthracite Stokol equipment. This film of 18.3 frames and 20 minutes of solid selling makes it possible for new dealers and inexperienced salesmen to sell Stokol in competi. tion with most skillful people in the organization. "The day of visual selling has arrived. A combination of conditions has brought this about. Sales training methods of a few years ago are obsolete. There is no substitute that I know of for the slide film as a vehicle for sales training and group selling." ♦ To the manufacturer of low-price articles, use of sound picture selling has often appeared impractical. The experiences of the Coca-Cola Company, however, in merchandising a five cent article bears high testimony to the efficiency of the medium. To Coca-Cola's seven hundred bottlers this year went the fifth series of merchandising meetings entirely based on six slide film productions as the keystones of sales instructions. Here's how Coca-Cola's promotional brochure to dealers describes them: This humorous scene illustrates a point in Coca Cola' recent talking slide film, "Under the Lid" "The Merchandising Service is a sales promotional program built for the bottler and his sales organization. It keeps the bottler abreast of the latest developments for building sales of CocaCola. It teaches salesmen the fundamentals of merchandising Coca-Cola and shows them how to put these fundamentals into effective use. It provides the thought and material for a well-rounded sales program. The Merchandising Service is offered in the form of a series of sound-films to show the individual Coca-Cola sales organizations, together with instructions for the plant manager, bulletins for posting in plant and on trucks, and printed ma terial covering the subject of the meeting for the personal use of each salesman. The Merchandising Service also makes available to subscribers such accessories as handbooks, refrigeration charts, survey sheets, etc. — whatever is necessary to put into effect the well-rounded program suggested. "Through The Merchandising Service every plant has the means to keep in step with the most effective sales promotion methods. The salesmen have the opportunity to learn merchandising by seeing and hearing what merchandising is and how it should be done. In developing material for a Merchandising Meeting the most important problems connected with the sale and promotion of Coca-Cola are analyzed. New plans and ideas of the most progressive bottlers are investigated and tested in the field by trained men who contact managers, ride with salesmen, call on dealers. Then those plans found most successful are given to subscribers of this service. In this manner the experience of 1,100 bottling plants is digested and condensed for the benefit of all. Renewed subscriptions from hundreds of bottlers each year is convincing testimonial of the value of this service. The Coca-Cola Company confidently recommends it to all bottlers." To summarize Coca-Cola's activities in the visual field is to restate these important points: 1. The company is one of the earliest users of the slide film medium. 2. It is one of the most consistent users of talking slide films. 3. It has experienced imiversal and consistent success in its use. 4. A 5c article is successfully merchandised, proving the adaptability of the medium to all classes of goods and services. 5. The company using the medium is recognized for its merchandising alertness. 6. Coca-Cola has. finally, accomplished what one authority terms an "almost insurmountable job of converting drivers into salesmen." Slide film productions for this company are turned out by any experienced and capable producer of this type of film. A complete service is offered the dealer and bottler. This includes the jjurchase of equipment and the offer, also, of a library of back meetings which have been smartly edited so that they remain completely re-usable. ♦ Excellent slide films which possess strong entertaimnent value or worthwhile educational material are used with real success for consumer showings. National users who apply this economical medium to the consumer field have long ago dismissed the (Continued on Page 43) 39