Boxoffice (Oct-Dec 1962)

ADLINES & EXPL0ITIP5 ALPHABETICAL INDEX EXHIBITOR HAS HIS SAY FEATURE RELEASECHART feature: REVIEW DIGEST SHORTS RELEASE CHART SHORT SUBJECT REVIEWS REVIEWS OF FEATURES SHOWMANDISING IDEAS THE GUIDE TO ^BETTER BOOKING AND BUSINESS-BUILDING Selling Today's Pictures With Complicated Themes Advance Teaser Campaign, Three Weeks or Longer Is Necessary, Points Out L E. Forester The thoughts expressed in the following paragraphs on preselling the growing number of today’s “special treatment’’ pictures represent the growing conviction of theatre admen everywhere, reports L. E. Forester of Dallas, advertising -promotion director for Frontier Theatres. “Routine advertising, a few days or even a week in advance, just doesn’t allow enough time for the ‘message’ to soak in when you are trying to sell pictures with today’s complicated themes,” he points out. The following article was sent to all managers of the Frontier circuit in Texas and New Mexico by the Frontier advertising department. L E. FORESTER Advertising manager for Frontier Theotres, Dallas, Tex. Let’s visit for a few minutes about theatre advertising in general, and no campaign in particular! While a major revolution in production has been going on in recent years, there have been few, if any changes in the methods of advertising at the local level. We are still pretty much plugging along at publicizing our attractions just as we did in the “good old days’’ when moviegoing was habit! In the days of block booking, when all of a film company’s product for the year was bought in a bushel basket, routine advertising kept the customers coming. Our big campaigns for big Sunday pictures, seldom started more than a week in advance— and, indeed, a longer-in-advance buildup was not necessary. We didn’t have to put people “in the mood” to go to the show. They were already in the mood and within one week’s time, it was easy to stimulate a mass stampede to our theatre to see our “big picture.” The capacity audience was ready and willing. We merely nudged them en masse to the boxoffice. Today, there is no such thing as the “moviegoing habit!” People are no longer “in the mood” to attend the theatre. They are in the mood to watch TV — or go bowling— or go boating — or go nightclubbing — or go visiting — or go drag-racing or just ridin’ aroiuid! TODAY'S PICTURES True, there are still many run-of-themill pictures, and since every picture in a manager’s lineup cannot possibly be given special treatment, these average attractions must, of necessity, be advertised routinely — trailer on the screen, displays in the lobby, a display ad the day before opening and through the first day. Attendance is largely limited to the remaining segment of the population that is still “in the mood” to see movies regularly, and how that segment has shrunk! BUT WHAT ABOUT MAJOR PRODUCT? Here is where our “advertising thinking” needs a radical overhaul, to keep pace with the radical change in “production thinking.” Almost every major, preferred-time release these days is, in a sense, a “problem picture.” Routine advertising will not produce a want-to-see mood in the minds of the infrequent moviegoers. A display ad the day before opening and on opening day, and the same scheduling of radio spots, distribution of heralds, etc., is invariably too little and too late! You can’t wait until the last minute to pei’suade a person to get “out of the mood” to watch TV and “into the mood” to go to the show! He is a creature of habit and habits are not suddenly overcome. He is not going to read your opening day ad or hear your opening day radio spot and drop everything to rush down to the theatre to see a picture, any more than you or I rush right out to buy a tube of toothpaste the first time we hear a TV commercial command us to do so! The prospective movie patron must be conditioned by a sustained, advance campaign, so that by the time the picture opens, he has worked up a will to see it. Going to the show is seldom a spur ofthe-moment impulse. Even the teenagers, who are most apt to act impulsively, an Cogent Quotes Thought-provoking quotations from a recent article sent by Frontier Theatres’ advertising-promotion department, headed by L. E. Forester, to its managers in Texas and New Mexico: ♦ ♦ * Today, there is no such thing as the moviegoing habit! * ♦ * Almost every major, preferred-time release these days is, in a sense, a problem picture. Routine advertising . . . is invariably too little and too late. ^ ^ if. The prospective movie patron must be conditioned by a sustained, advance campaign. 4: 4: A poor opening day’s gross is never made up. * * * After opening? From now on, you are at the mercy of word-of-mouth. ticipate in advance the pictures they want to see. And with the older householders, this resistance to instant action is even more pronounced. WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT! There is but one answer — the Advance Teaser Campaign! By waiting until the last minute to fire your advertising artillery, you allow no time to build up curiosity in the minds of your prospective patrons! Even though your day-before-opening ad and radio spots may have maximum impact, it’s too late to persuade a prospective customer to change his premade plans to go bowling, play bridge, watch the Untouchables, visit Aunt Sophie, mow the lawn or what have you! Consequently, your opening day’s gross falls short of what it could have been, if those prospective customers had been conditioned in advance to see the picture — before they were committed to other plans. They’ll come later on in the run, you say? Maybe yes, maybe no! If the picture is playing Sunday-Wednesday, the chances are 10 to 1 that the patron lost on Sunday will not attend on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, because these are work or school nights. And if the attraction is (Continued on next page) BOXOFFICE Showmandiser : : Nov. 12, 1962 — 181 — 1