Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1960)

[]U11 MAIIhK'l' (Continued from Page 7) We ned more than ever to make it worthwhile to go to the movies. That's the selling problem. We have to be geared to campaigning, which says in effect "you get your money's worth at this picture in our theatre.-' This calls for a more acute understanding of what the public will buy. Of what motivates theatre attendance. And how you can pin-point the specific entertainment for the audience which would buy it — if you arouse that impulse. This reads like a tough assignment. And it surely is. This business is no longer a living for exhibitors who are satisfied to open and close — and do the housekeeping, saying only to the picture "show me". You go searching for the audience. You use the whole armament of selling. You use shotgun, machine-gun or rifle, depending upon the target. And if your average for bulls-eyes is good — so is your business. * * * MITCHELL WOLFSON President, Wometco Enterprises It would gild a lily to make additional comments on your fine article, "Are We Making the Most of Our Market?" But here comes the gilt, anyway. My first thought is that, as you have implied, it "ain't our market unless we go after it. Being in a new business everytime we change pictures we must let the buyers know what our business is. We are a business without an inventory; no part of our merchandise can lay on shelves and retain its value for sale next week or next month. We must sell now what we have now whether it's quality or standard stock. Your idea of a special promotion team for each film is as entirely appropriate as having a special cast of players for each picture. Just as an example: Some time back w e had what you might call a "paper-back" picture, THE MATCHMAKER: For its run we made an exploitation tie-up with the JordanMarsh Department Store. Their advertising department came up with what many thought a better ad on this picture than any in the press book. We're not criticizing anyone here; it's just that the J-M people had a special project and they gave it some specialized thinking. Once in a while it might not be a bad idea to turn Madison Avenue loose on a picture — one that needs selling, if \<>u please — and let them "run it up the pole and see who salutes it." They've made a lot of people believe that certain things were whiter than white and milder than mild; maybe they can jingleize an extra million or so into believing a movie is better than ever. Especially when the chances are that it really is. When we stop being mass entertainment we're dead so we must employ mass marketing, and mass impressions. Imagine the Perry Como show or the Ed Sullivan show sponsored every week by MPAA with part of the entertainment being star appearances and showing snatches from pictures about to be released. Three or four pictures a week would get a hard sell in the commercial time; and there would be soft-sell about pictures in production in segments called "Hollywood Report" or some better title. I don't mean to change the basic format of any successful TV show that might be selected; it would have to keep its entertainment appeal. But I do mean to really use TV and not have some star do a walk-on now and then for a little conversation and a dragged-in mention of a picture. I mean using the time to mention pictures like we were doing it on purpose and proud of it. A HOPEFUL NEW DECADE (Continued from Page 6) factors that would overwhelm it — be it free TV, Toll TV, product shortage — it can achieve survival only as a unified body. Thus, exhibitor unity will be one of the crucial issues of the decade. Finally, the shape of the sixties for the motion picture industry will be determined by the creativity of every branch of the industry. We can use technical innovations as dynamic as the CinemaScope of the fifties. We can use new exhibition concepts as fruitful as the drive-in idea. We can use more promotional muscle. We can use new managerial talent. We can and must train the actors and the directors and the exhibitor-showmen of tomorrow . And we must start all this today. We must avoid the posture of an industry standing in the way of progress. W e can make more use of the mer In short, you're so right that the industry should have been doing something about it a long time ago. The dollar that comes in on Monday night of a three-day booking counts a wholelot more than the one that walked away from a blockbuster on a Saturday night because of a line at the boxoffice. ROBERT W.'SELIG President, Fox Inter-Mountain We would favor "making the most of our market" by developing more merchandising effort behind B-plus attractions and other product which does not reach the blockbuster class. With many voids in our bookings, we have had to give careful attention to researching the "repeat picture" market, putting combinations together and developing our own radio, TV, newspaper and promotion campaigns around them. Any thing that might be done to give aid to the utilization of these pictures would be in order. For example, we have been able to take such product as Yesterday' s Enemies and give it top feature treatment through strong campaigning. In other years, Yesterday's Enemies would be nothing more than an out-and-out second feature. chandising potential of television. The disc jockeys, instead of killing the phonograph record business, created its greatest boom. Television, wisely used, can do as much for the motion picture industry. It is up to the motion picture industry, not to television, to figure out how best to do this job. It is entirely possible that in some laboratory today a new idea is being born w hich w ill render acadamic the question of competition from old films on the home screen. W e must encourage the scientists in the laboratories and the blue sky thinkers. We must encourage the showmen who offer scented pictures, and those who are seeking a way to provide 3-D without glasses and the boys who are working on pictures-in-the-round. The next decade w ill be the strenuous sixties. Having survived the furious fifties, we should be ready for anything. Film BULLETIN January 4, I960 Page 15