Exhibitors Herald World (Oct-Dec 1930)

October 4, 1930 EXHIBITORS HERALD-WORLD 43 W BOX OFFICE PROMOTION Department Store Hookups Work on Almost Any Film; Campaigns Prove It Department stores are perhaps one of the most fruitful tieup sources in the exploitation game. Because of the almost unlimited variety of goods and the merchandise scope there is always some article in the store which will fit well into a tieup on any picture. It isn't like a drug store, where the exploitation must be narrowed down to the advertising of cosmetics, sundries or perfumes. Tiffany's publicity department, knowing the value of department store tieups, has negotiated for the exploitation of its new Chimp comedies in 30,000 stores throughout the country. The chief article to be displayed in windows will be mechanical chimpanzee, a toy. Stores Available Everywhere This is one good stunt, but there are hundreds and thousands of others that will work equally as well with department stores. And it doesn't take a big producing company to put them across. Any exhibitor, whether he be in the smallest village or the biggest city, can do the same thing on a smaller scale. Every town has its department store. Some are bigger than others, but that has no bearing on the promotion campaign, so long as one of the larger ones in town is selected. These same department stores usually have great expanses of window space. In the cities experts are hired to trim them; in the smaller towns, more than one store manager often finds himself up against it to get his windows decorated nicely. Now what would be better than to have the theatre take some of this space occasionally. If the theatre has a house artist he can do the decorating job. Otherwise some one else can be found for it. El Capitan Tries It That tieups with department stores, either on window display, or cooperative advertising, or on any other system of ballyhoo, is profitable has been shown in San Francisco, where the El Capitan theatre has worked out an interesting cooperative idea. The tieup was in connection with a sale held at the Misson Street store. The merchandising concern agreed with the El Capitan management to run a double-page ad layout containing photographs of film stars who were coming to the theatre. Scattered in the group were pictures of department heads at the store. There were 18 pictues in all. Copy on the page told the public of the identification contest being run with the photographs. Each picture was numbered. Pennants in the lobby, banners on the sidewalk and huge electric signs on the marquee heralded the opening of M G M's "Good News" at Loew's State theatre, Cleveland. HarryShaw, manager, obtained the collegiate "Lizzy" in the foreground as another carrier of the "Good News." Window displays at the store were a replica of the newspaper ad. Under the likeness of each department head of the store, the full name and the department he directed were given, so there was no puzzle about that — merely information for the public. Given in this form, people couldn't help but read it. For the screen stars the readers were to give identification and the star's recent pictures. This data was to be filled out on a blank appearing at the bottom of the ad and turned in at store. When contestants brought their contributions to the store they noticed the sale going on and many of them bought. In other words, many came to the store and became customers, who otherwise might not have attended on the strength of a mere advertisement of a sale. All of which goes to show that tieup ads carry far more effect than ordinary ones. How much did this cost the theatre? Just exactly 100 show admissions, which isn't a lot in San Francisco for a house the size of the El Capitan. The department store took care of all costs on the newspaper ads and windows. The theatre got its share of mention both in the ads and other display for providing the tickets as prizes. Its current attractions were also plugged. The store assembled $55 worth of merchandise and split it four ways for the four highest in the contest. The 100 show admissions were also distributed. When the tieup had been finished the management of both the store and theatre were agreed that it had been a good deal more profitable than a cut-and-dried advertising campaign could possibly have been. Dancing Course at Indiana Free dancing instruction is given at the roof ballroom above the Indiana theatre in Indianapolis each Thursday evening as the latest exploitation plan at that house.