Business screen magazine (1958)

f *4»olden Opportunity" for !>iponsors Viewin;^ cm Armour "commercial" in one of nation's 4,:>00 drive-ins . . . SCREEN ADVERTISING Tlirou{|>liou< 1'. S. and Abroad. MillionN in Movi«* Audionces R<'5«|ion<l <o Briof. Effective Playlets IF You're One of those persons whose movie-going experience has been limited to downtown first-run houses in metropolitan centers like New York City or Chicago ... or if you've never been to a drive-in theatre ... it may surprise you to learn that television screens aren't the only places where filmed "commercials'" are regular fare. Today 93.7% of the country's 17,000 theatres show filmed advertising messages as a regular part of their d;uly programs — and unlike most TV commercials, all of these advertisements are in dramatic full color and a hundred times TV-size. Usually from three to five filmed selling messages, from 40 to 90 seconds, make up the advertising program. Each commercial is shown for one week, at each performance, and theatres are paid a rental fee based on the average weekly audience and other values. Based on the length of the commercial, the cost will average from $4.10 to $6.28 — per thousand viewers. The average commercial may have from five to eight scenes, depending on its length; these scenes can be live-action, animated, or a combination of both. 50th Year for >lediiiin Theatre screen advertising isn't new. It got its start in the industry's pioneer phase almost 50 years ago, with home-made messages painted or lettered on glass slides. Small-town theatre audiences have been familiar with it for years, for its backbone has been the thousands of small merchants who have used it regularly to tell the story of their own products and services. What is new is that in the last two or three years, more and more national advertisers have become aware of this long-established medium and its sales potentialities. Among the reasons given for the growing advertising popularity of the medium is that screen commercials reach a "captive" audience. There are no distractions, and the impact of the selling message is experienced by every viewer. A widely-successful screen ad Big Theatre Screens, Brilliant Color and Merchandising Tie-ins Help Make Theatre Screen Advertising a Comer ... ti vertising program of recent years was Texaco's "Four Seasons" campaign, linking the familiar oil change and "seasonized" gasolines to superbly beautiful screen renditions of the seasons. According to the Texas Company's ebullient sales promotion manager. Jack Gregory, these subjects scored heavily on the sales front with numerous reported incidents of "fill'er up with Texaco" by drivers who turned into the familiar sign of the Red Star on their way home from drive-ins and neighborhood "hard-tops." ■Iire(;t Tie-in to Sales It is one of the screen advertising medium's most vaunted assets that the customer will react to its sales message within minutes of the showing. Witness the successful Armour & Company frankfurter appeals tied in directly with drive-in food facilities; witness the candy and beverage appeals used within theatres to whom these items are vital to the profit-and-loss statement; witness the shopping habits of movie-goers affected by service station ads, restaurants, etc. There isn't another medium more directly related to a customer on the move, able and made willing to be motivated into buying action within a very short space of time after receiving the message. In a more recent instance, a company selling brake-repair equipment and service offered a Shooting scene for a '58 Pliilco playlet on stage at Alexander Film. warning that, if an auto brake pedal had to be depressed more than half way before it took hold, the brakes needed repairing. Almost immediately, brake lights throughout the drive-in theatre lit up. The actual viewers can be counted by the number of admi& sion tickets sold. The advertiser buys circulation that approximates the readership of his commercial. This means that there is little or no waste circulation. This is es pecially important to national advertisers in a time when they must make every advertising dollar count. Tolor and Motion Sell A new and powerful element in favor of screen advertising as a selling force is the stimulus of color. Color creates drama; it can inspire enthusiasm and action in theatre audiences; it helps to seB brand recognition, brand loyalty. Motion picture audiences respond to color — proof is the fact that most entertainment films today are made in color. Combined only in screen advertising, the twin fundamentals of color and motion add realism, attention, beauty, motivation and identity to the sales message. This array of sales stimuli, its proponents say, is unmatched in any other form of national advertising. Another point that screen advertisers count in its favor is that the medium offers selectivity beyond that of many other types of advertising. An advertiser may concentrate not only on one locality, but on selected neighborhoods in that locality. This is especially important where dealer coverage is concerned, and it gives advertisers an opportunity to cover special nationality groups and other pinpointed areas where these messages will be most effective. Films are usuaUy booked into theatres on an every week, every other week, or once a month schedule, and for terms of thirteen, twenty-six or fifty-two weeks. Maniifaeturer-Deal«"!r Aid A "national manufacturer-dealer campaign" can be arranged in a number of different ways. The manufacturer always pays the total cost of production and prints; he may split the local screening cost with a local distributor or dealer; BUSINESS SCREEN MAGAZINE