The Moving picture world (November 1926-December 1926)

November 20, 1926 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 161 Four Examples of A* Advertising from the South Flashy Envelope Qot All Readers H. G. Olson, of the Jeffris theatre, Janesville, Wis., sends in a stunt that will work on any picture not too dignified to be handled in a snappy style. It is a small prescription envelope printed up in red with a skull and bones and the legend, "Your turn is coming." Below, in much smaller type is "Instructions inside." The enclosure is a small slip reading to the effect that "Your turn is coming" to see the picture advertised; in this instance The Palm Breach Girl. Mr. Olsen writes that he had tried this stunt before, using cheaper manila stock, and he finds that the display value of red on white is so much more vivid that the slightly more expensive stock more than repays the additional cost. He adds that he used the local baby identification contest on That's My Baby and got 23 identifications on 37 pictures. These pictures were displayed in the lobby in a nice frame, and he writes that he seemed to give him as much as he could have gotten out of the more expensive plan book stunt of photographing the babies. A good way to handle this is to give a ticket for each identification and label each photograph as it is identified, to prevent repetition, Since you know the names of the children, you can have the labels prepared in advance. The press book stunt is better for the cities, but in a small town the identification works just as well and is less expensive. Chipped In Using wood veneer, such as they make peach baskets of Rodney Bush, of the Galax theatre, Birmingham, put out three thousand four-inch strips to announce The Son of the Sheik as "a chip off the old block." It was a clever idea, and down in the peach district the wood was readily available. Held the Lion Using one man in a lion masquerade dress and another in tattered clothes and redsmeared face, C. T. Perrin, of the Rialto theatre. Pueblo, got much attention for Hold That Lion. The two men paraded the streets, with the lion in front and the other holding on to his tail and yelling, "Hold That Lion!" He also carried a sign upon his back. Used Treasure Hunt for the Love Qame For a week before the playing of So This Is Paris at the Howard theatre, Atlanta, the Georgian carried stories about the love cane of a gay Parisian, which was supposed to be in Atlanta. Each day the same newspaper carried a classified advertisement telling that one of the clues would be obtained at a certain store. The cards handed out were non-committal until the fifth day, when the direction was to go to the Howard. There a card was handed out telling that the cane was to be found "in the midst of a woodland green in an outlying section of Atlanta." Acting on this hint, the cane was found on the bank of a park lake and was carried to the newspaper, where the promised reward was given. As the treasure hunt was new to Atlanta, there was more than the usual interest, and while hundreds made the search, thousands read of the stunt with interest and watched its progress. In the regular campaign 20,000 programs and 10,000 heralds were distributed. FOUR EXAMPLES OF BALLYHOOING FROM UNITED ARTISTS FROM SOUTH AMERICA The autamobile parade advertised The Thief of Bagdad in Nitcheroy, near Rio de Janeiro The Chaplin exploitation was done bv the Gloria Theatre, Rio. and the execution fl«>al was on Orphan, of the Sto™, at the Royal Theatre Sao Paulo. This latter display, which was on a Ford chasis, seem, to have been remade from the Ijloria ' display.