Boxoffice (Oct-Dec 1962)

Complicated -Theme Pictures Require Longer Buildup . . . Teaser Ads Urged (Continued from preceding page) playing a full week, opening on Thursday (in larger towns!), a poor opening day’s gross is never made up ! No matter how big a Saturday and Sunday you may have, if you don't get a big Thm-sday and Friday, yur full week's gross will fall far short of what it might have been. LET'S BE SPECIFIC! The fii'st step, of course, is to wisely choose which pictures are to get the three weeks (or even longer) advance teaser campaign. Such a long sustained advance buildup is less needed for an Elvis Presley picture or a Hatari! than for a Bird Man of Alcatraz, The Chapman Report, Judgment at Nuremberg, Advise and Consent, or a Counterfeit Traitor. Of the releases coming up now or in the near future, we would say advance teaser campaigns should be initiated for these titles; The Pigeon That Took Rome The Manchurian Candidate Phantom of the Opera No Man Is an Island Gigot Billy Rose’s Jumbo If a Man Answers King of Kings ■What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? WHAT ADVANCE TEASERS TO USE The advance campaign does not need to be expensive. It can consist of: 1. A gratis teaser trailer on the screen three weeks in advance. 2. A one-sheet display board in the lobby, with a “flitter” arrow that says, “Watch for This Sensational Entertainment . . . Coming Soon!” If no one-sheet is at hand, use the cover page of a pressbook! Or a page ad cut from a trade magazine ! 3. The handout of small printed slips or cards, in the theatre, on the street, in the front seat of parked cars, with nothing more than a brief, intriguing copy, such as: “Did You Know That the ‘Bird Man of Alcatraz’ spent 43 Years in Solitary Confinement? His Fantastic Story Will Soon Be Told on the Screen of the State 'Theatre.” 4. Mail personal letters a month in advance to PTA presidents, school heads, welfare workers, etc., alerting them to the fact that you have just been fortunate enough to have secured a booking of “The Miracle Worker,” or a new Disney, or the same sort of letter to every lawyer in town, about “Judgment at Nuremberg,” or more letters to every politician or political party worker about “Advise and Consent.” 5. 'Three weeks or even a month in advance, run a small one-column “Alert! !” type ad in the newspaper announcing the “Sensational News” that you will soon be showing the Biblical spectacle “King of Kings.” You get the idea! 6. Follow up your “Alert!” ad with a se ries of just small teaser ads on the same attraction. 7. Make up a clown dummy and hang it from the highest visible point of your building, or at any suitable spot in town, with a sign that reads: “Please Hang Around Until ‘Jumbo’ comes to the State . . . Soon!” Leave it hanging there for three weeks, or until some prankish kids swipe it, and then plant a newspaper story about the clownnapping. 8. A month in advance, schedule one radio spot a day consisting of nothing more than the sound of a telephone ringing and the copy: “If a Man Answers, Don’t Hang Up ... It May Be Bobby Darin or Sandra Dee!” 9. Two or three weeks in advance of any science-fiction thriller, improvise a hundred or more small parachutes (made from handkerchiefs) with ominous looking little gadgets (ping-pong balls with protruding wires) suspended from the lines, and late at night, toss them up into trees in all parts of town. Improvise Russian lettering on the parachutes. You may start a city wide panic (as happened in one town), but you clinch the stunt panic or no, by running an ad in the newspaper: “'We Are Sorry If You 'Were Frightened by the Strange Objects That Were Dropped All Over Town Recently. We have ascertained that they will not explode in earth’s atmosphere, and can only be activated by the Radio-Activity of outer space. They were the first onslaught of the ‘Invasion of the Star Creatures’ — which will be launched in its full fury on November 23, on the screen of the State Theatre.” 10. A picture like “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” is a natural for teaser stunts. Have all cashiers, for a month in advance, answer the telephone with “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” as though she were talking to someone, and when the person says “What?” or the like, the cashier quickly says: “Oh, I’m sorry, this is the State 'Theatre. May I help you?” The same sort of tricky teaser can be used on radio — a 10-second spot each day, different time. A woman’s voice asks the question and the answer is just a diabolical woman’s laugh, followed by a menacing female voice saying “Hee! Hee! You’ll find out! November 26th!” Our list, of course, could go on and on, but we’re sure you get the idea. TIMING YOUR BIG GUNS! The foregoing has dealt with the far-inadvance teaser campaign. Now, when do we break with our heavy artillery? Frankly, nothing has concerned this flack department more, the past year or so, than the apparent trend toward concentrating advertising, especially radio spots, on opening day and during the run of a picture. As discussed in the first part of this bulletin, we would like to convince you of the logic of persuading your patrons at least a day or two in advance to make plans to see a picture before they are committed to other plans. ADS IN THE DAILY PAPER TOWNS: Thursday Openings, Full Week Runs. 'The first display ad — and it need not be more than a 1-col. 6-inch, or a 2-col. 5inch — should break on the Sunday preceding. Monday’s paper can be skipped, but another small ad should run Tuesday. Then your largest, smash ad should run Wednesday. How big should the ad be? It should be as big an ad as your budget will allow — and if you conserve on space in the remainder of your campaign, it can be a whopper! Remember, this is the ad that climaxes your teaser campaign. 'This is the clincher that eliminates any sales resistance that may remain in the minds of your prospective patrons, who may have been “on the fence” until now. On opening day, you are still selling, so a good display ad should be used, but it need not be a whopper. After opening? Well, all of the display space in the world is not going to sell one extra ticket. From now on, you are at the mercy of word-of-mouth! Your ads, now, need to be no more than directory. If you got your big opening, momentum will carry you through the first three days. If the picture is a crowd-pleaser, word will spread all over town. If people are displeased, attendance will drop — and no amount of extra advertising will increase the gross a nickel. Sunday Openings, for Three or Four Days: Sunday through Thm-sday ahead of opening, you use what small ads you can afford, as a build-up. Your whopper ad runs on Friday — no Saturday paper! What about Sunday’s paper? An ad of conservative space will suffice. A 2-col. 5 or 6-inch. In all of Frontier’s towns, except Albuquerque, practically everybody takes some metropolitan paper — with its many pages of comics, its magazine section, its wider coverage of world and national news, its famous writers and columnists. The local paper gets a minimum of attention. In such situations, the theatre is entirely at the mercy of the papers’ Thursday publication date, so naturally the sock display ad on the Sunday picture runs on Thursday. WEEKLY PAPER TOWNS: Our only recommendation to weekly paper town managers is to run small teaser ads on the “special treatment” pictures two, even three weeks in advance. These need not be ads that will put a strain on your budget allowance. Just two or three inches will be enough to get the picture “in the wind.” WHAT ABOUT RADIO SPOTS? The principle applied to newspaper ads also applies to radio. Scattered, one-a-day teasers far in advance, to arouse curiosity, then a concentration of “hard sell” spots two or three days in advance of opening, through opening day. If you have good spots that will make people want to see the picture, then schedule them early enough to create an audience that plans in advance to go to the show. 2 — 182 — BOXOFFICE Showmandiser ; ; Nov. 12, 1962