Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1941)

... OF MEN AND THINGS By JACK HARROWER REPUBLIC-THE COMMON SENSE OUTFIT Looking back over the steady progress of Republic Pictures since it was organized six years ago, we found it interesting to sit down with Charles Reed Jones, the advertising chief, and try to get a picture of the growth of the organization which has introduced some practical business methods into an industry that often stands revealed as anything but businesslike in its modus operandi. Whatever the future of this company may turn out to be, it will go down in history as the organization that introduced common sense into operation both of studio and home office. President Yates has always insisted on getting value for every dollar he spends. Some other producing organizations find executives spending the company's money with a large and lavish hand. Yates is spending his money. That's probably the answer to the crazy extravagances of the picture biz handed to you in one sentence. * * * For the first five years it was a steady building up of confidence among exhibitors. The company feels that a year ago they had denitely achieved this confidence. Having secured an industry standing, Republic last year started to build recognition with the general public — the cash customers. This was attempted by advertising regularly in fifteen fan magazines. At the home office in New York and from the studio on the coast a steady effort has been made the past year to build prestige with the public through newspapers as well as the magazines. For instance, "Cowboy Movie Thrillers," a new Munsey publication, had Gene Autry on the cover of the second issue, and Roy Rogers advertised on the cover for a story inside. "Screenland's" editor, Delight Evans, wrote her famous open letter for the first time to a cowboy — Roy Rogers. * * * The company is operating with the smallest advertising and publicity department of any company in the business — and getting BIG results. Jones has a staff of specialists in various fields whom he considers tops. What is more important, they have a genuine enthusiasm for their work which cannot be beaten in any organization in the business. As individuals, they are sold on the idea that Republic is headed for the front line and that they have a real future with the company. * * * As a comparatively new company, theirs is a constant battle to win space in newspaper and magazines against the older and bigger companies. It really isn't much of a problem to go out and grab space for a glamorous and popular Clark Gable, Marlene Dietrich or Ginger Rogers. If the publicity lad has a good fresh slant on the Big Name, the magazine editor is more anxious to snatch the "exclusive" than the press mug is to unload it. But to knock off a magazine or newspaper for sizeable space for a comparatively unknown Lynn Merrick or a Carol Adams or a Lois Ranson, that, friends, is quite a chore for the best grade of space-grabber. And the Republic bunch are doing that same trick with amazing regularity. They have secured, for instance, three important covers on Merrick within the past few months. It's things like that which give the Charles Jones staff a kick in their work — to go out and achieve results with lesser lights among players. * * * It is a fact that Republic rarely misses an issue of any recognized trade paper for one or more of their "specialty" ads. Yates believes in hitting with small ads but hitting steadily. He may buy less space than the big majors, but Republic actually runs more individual ads than any other company. Which is something for those who are ad conscious to mull over. The Yates psychology is that four quarter-page ads get more attention than one page ad in the same publication. The Republic chief feels that every exhibitor reads at least one trade paper, so the company's advertising schedule takes in every trade paper. This policy has been consistently adhered to for the past three years. Results have justified making it a permanent policy, a fact which should be most encouraging to trade paper publishers. Exhibitors may pass up a lot of the ballyhoo and blurbs that are purveyed as "news items," but they DO read the ads. Jones' ad and pub staff take pride in the team work they have done on pictures like "Jungle Girl." On this one they hit big space through landing articles with a half dozen newspaper syndicates. They planted two and three-page layous on this serial. The boys developed an angle, and went out and smacked it over strong. The angle was that even as Pearl White, Helen Holmes and Ruth Roland were tops in the good old serial days, likewise Frances Gifford is tops as the Modern Serial Girl. They also did a sizeable job on Billy Conn, the fighter, in "The Pittsburgh Kid." They figure that the radio time they grabbed was worth the proverbial million dollars. Also on "Ice-Capades." On this one they capitalized the old lure of leg art, used with such brilliant results by the famous publicist Steve Hannigan, who built up Miami Beach with nothing else but. * * * An outstanding publicity job was, and still is being done with "Adventures of Captain Marvel" — a tieup with the Fawcett Publications. This company publishes the serial strip in one of its magazines. So when Republic made it into the popular serial, the publishing concern had their promotion men throughout the United States stage a comprehensive local promotion campaign to help every exhibitor who asked for it. Here is a continuous campaign running for months, available to any theatre playing the serial. * * * From the sales angle, Jimmy Grainger reports that many exhibitors are buying the full program because they have found that Republic has a quality of Dependability. The studio is doing a fine job in building exploitation into the picture at the very start, wherever possible. This helps the Jones ad and pub departments tremendously. * * * There is a very definite policy in preparing Republic trade paper ads. The company feels that exhibitors are not particularly impressed with a producer's paid appraisal of his own picture. It seems that producers have been given at times to overenthusiasm, overstatement, even overexaggeration. So some cynical exhibitors have curled their lips and sniffed their noses and acted generally as if they questioned these ads. Therefore Republic ads attempt to give a "sample" of what's really in the picture. The ads, in a word, show exactly what the company has to present to the exhibitors— not a list of superlative adjectives making claims that fail to impress because showmen have read the same adjectives a thousand times before. 24 FILM BULLETIN