Reel and Slide (Jan-Sep 1919)

12 REEL and SLIDE I Ad Slides — Good and Bad I i = | A Department of Criticism, Edited for | Reel and Slide Magazine by Jonas Howard ^miuniiEniiininiiiniii iniiunmn ■ n mu mui un mill ■■ mi i inn i iimi ■ mi ■ in ti i ■ iiim jhid ■ utrn min urn ii i ii n u i n ■ i ■ ■ m ■ i ■ urn 1 1 1 m ■ i mi i ■ iiijiii mi i ■ ■ i itn 1 1 mil ■ i urn i ■ mi^ MANUFACTURERS and merchants who have seen in the lantern slide an effective medium are getting out of the cheap slide habit as incongruous when compared with their nifty periodical ads and elegant circulars. It is true that slides are easily breakable and that operators are nearly always careless in handling them ; but this concerns only the slides themselves and there is no reason why negative quality should be neglected merely because a piece of glass with a value of a few cents has but a short period of service ahead of it. That is the trouble. Slide quality should begin in the negative and what goes to make the negative. Having a good negative your image may then be as effective on a poorly made print as it would be on a costly one. Big advertisers are learning this and * • * *__*> * * * DON T SAY "WHEN THE WAR IS OVER" ' SAY— "WHEN WE WIN THE WAR — AND — DON'T SAY "PAPER" SAY-"STAR where slides are designed to advertise a product nationally pains are being taken to get negative quality and good advertising appeal, both as to copy and design. Examine some of the Westinghouse kitchen appliance slides and you will see what I mean. I was struck recently by a slide that "got over" most effectively. It was made for the St. Louis Star. It is full of snap and rings true. It hitches up patriotism and links a phrase recently on every tongue with its own slogan. Only the speediest operator, and at a late hour, could keep any audience from getting the full effect and message on this slide. It is reproduced herewith. The dark background is most effective on the screen. Where big theaters project slides of this kind, the strong illumination makes a pleasing effect without glare. The letters in this slide, though of the poster style, are easy to run over and their apportionment is excellent. The eagle gives the effect of action. The terse wording has the "punch" we always want to get in a slide; but how often do we get it? Since the advertiser and slide maker must leave their production at the operator's booth door, and trust in his charity to give them a fair show, it is always better to prepare for the worst and make your slide readable in five seconds' screen time. Be glad if he doesn't project it upside down now and then! How can an advertiser be converted to lantern slides who has never used them? This question has been asked by a reader who is in the slide business. He writes that he depends entirely upon those who have been using slides for years, never getting up the nerve to give an advertiser a straight-from-the-shoulder talk in order to convince him or convert him. Much can be done in the line of creating new business if the slide maker goes about it properly. A great many advertisers have never had the value of lantern slides presented to them properly. One good argument is that no matter what else the advertiser may use, he isn't reaching everybody unless he flashes his trademark on the screen. So many advertisers talk billboard and choose them in preference to slides, holding that they are about the same thing. Ask them how many people passing a billboard see it and read it. A man walks six miles an hour. He can read about ten words at 25 feet — if he looks at all. An auto makes 15 or 20 miles. Its occupants can read five words at a hundred feet — if they look at all. A street car goes 25 miles and its passengers can catch about three words at a hundred and twenty-five feet. One passerby out of eight reads the signboard — the rest ignore it. It has little attracting value. The slide has. It is the only thing to look at and the "prospect" is in a chair, usually wedged in, with nothing to do but look. Motion Pictures the Ideal Medium for Resort Advertising By E. J. Clary EVER since Americans have evinced a willingness to spend their money on pleasure seeking and vacationing, the active publicity agents of resorts have expended thousands of dollars annually in luring the crowds to their particular places. In no less degree has each railroad and steamship company spent fortunes in persuading the tired business man and the social leader to seek rest and recreation 'mid Nature's wonders along their lines and routes. In examining the various mediums used in resort and travel advertising, one particular point forces itself upon the mind. All of this literature is calculated in its appeal to lure the vacationer by the one all important idea of presenting a "picture" of the delights, pleasures and conveniences of the places advertised. In the case of a placid lake, the circulars do not depend upon mere words to create this mental "picture." Costly photographs, showing the beauties, fishing advantages, opportunities for aquatic sport, etc., are found on every page of the costly booklet. The descriptive matter is invariably written by an ad writer of the poetic turn whose order is to make the public "see the place" — in the mind's eye. In this degree, "playground" advertising is a highly specialized branch of the science of publicity and the experts know their public well. There is a peculiar psychology about this. Vacationists, rich and poor, are in about the same frame of mind in that they must be lured to a particular resort by the creation of a picture in the imagination, of its particular allurements. Why, then, is not the moving picture the ideal method of advertising America's playgrounds ? To some degree it has been used. Bermuda has had more screen publicity, perhaps, than any single tourist mecca in the western hemisphere. Its natural, tropical advantages have not been exploited at the cost of hotel owners there or steamship lines serving it. The film men have done it free of cost. But no one could doubt its effectiveness. Florida, as a playground, too, has had its share of screen time. The natural advantages of California owe as much of their popularity to films as to the efforts of wide-awake commercial clubs and resort and hotel managers. Considering the strength of other peculiar "pulling power" in this connection, it is rather unusual that films are not used even more extensively than they are. There is one especially good reason why films make the ideal trade-winning medium for the resort manager : they can get circulation easily — if properly made. The theater man knows that at certain times of the year the mind of the whole world turns to the great outdoors. Resort films carefully produced need not bear any earmarks of an ad. They become scenics. What amateur fisherman is not ready and waiting to see a huge pickerel caught at close range and what an excellent visual example of the possibilities of any fishing ground does such a scene offer ! At the request of several prominent anthropologists, Albert E. Smith, president of the Vitagraph Company, will begin recording by motion pictures the dances, games, sports and all things possible to a complete pictorial history of the American Indian early this spring. The films will first be published as a superfeature and released throughout the country, after which it is planned to store them for posterity, and especially for the use of students, in some building to be determined.