Motion Picture News (Jan - Mar 1914)

The Motion Picture News MOVING PICTURE NEWS Established 1908 EXHIBITORS' TIMES Established 1913 Volume IX February 28, 1914 Number 8 A Being Different MAN who uses trade journals with striking success gave me his secret the other day. It is very simple. ^c A ^ *<T MAKE my copy different," said he, "different in -*■ every way — radically different. I keep up this style till one or more advertisers imitate it — as they invariably do. Then I change again." V * * IMITATION is the basis of advertising. It is the easiest way, so nearly everybody does it. Some advertisers imitate unconsciously and unintentionally. Like sheep they follow blindly. * :1c * HP HE consequence is that nearly every trade journal -* has its advertising pages leveled by a certain style. Automobile advertising, you will note, is very much alike in almost every instance, so is hardware, drugs, groceries, dry goods, tobacco advertising, etc. rT",HEATRICAL advertising, for some reason or ■*■ other, has always evidenced less originality, less intelligent purpose and more hide-bound similarity than any other kind of publicity. It is of the billboard style — big space, big type, big statements — and pouf! All over! And always it rings just the same! * * * HP RUE, there is competition along each of these -* trade advertising lines. But it is competitive imitation. Everybody tries to do better than the other fellow, and in the same way. Hence the origin of extravagant statements, crowded type, freakish display and the like. The idea is to use the same language, and to shout louder. * * * "VjOW, our friend, the successful advertiser, goes -^ about it altogether differently. He uses a different language. He doesn't have to shout ; his strange tongue, however gently used, stands out among all the babel and keeps on standing out. He gets and holds the eyes and ears of the audience. * * * T T E does not attempt to compete with the others' ■*--* in their way. He competes in his own way. First he studies over what they are doing and why they are doing1 it, and then he starts on a new tack. * * * TTE begins at the bottom — brand new idea, brand *■ ■*■ new line of appeal, brand new dress, etc. The point is that he starts differently. /~^\ F course, it shocks people. Especially, it disturbs ^'the advertising experts. They shake their heads gravely. It is wrong, they declare, very wrong, because it breaks the scientific rules of advertising. * * * SCIENTIFIC rubbish ! The only scientific rules of advertising are those made successful in usage by just the sort of man I speak of, the creative man, who makes his own rules and promptly discards them when he finds them imitated. ^ ^ sfc A XOTHER man, whose copy "stands out" in every ^* trade journal he goes into, had presented to him one day by his advertising manager a specimen page of copy for the "Saturday Evening" Post." T was daring throughout. It broke every advertis I ing precedent. When it was presented to the advertising council of the "Post," the member experts were so pained they entreated the advertiser not to run it ! H E smiled. "Almost am I convinced," said he, " — to run it." TJ E held it, however, for a further test. He showed ■*■ -*■ it to a number of other advertisers gathered at a convention. They laughed at it, growled at it, condemned it in detail, roasted it so hard that he promptly decided to spend four thousand dollars on it. Later everybody — the advertising experts included — admitted that it was the advertising sensation of the season. ■f ^ ;•; * I A HERE'S lots of competition in motion picture ad-*■ vertising to-day. There always will be. :|c $: Tfc HP HERE'S a great chance to be "different." There ■*■ always will be. W. A. J.