Motion Picture Herald (Apr-Jun 1952)

101 WAYS TO BUILD P. R Advertising Makes Money Advertising is ahvays public relations, for it is M your voice, in print, speaking directly to your m public. All that you say in your paid advertising reflects the personality of your theatre, and that means your own good taste and good judgment. Guard carefully against offense to any reader of your advertising, for fhaf person, so offended, can keep and hold a grudge fhat will cosf you money af the box office for months and years to come. Remember, you are a public speaker, addressing a waiting audience, when you print a newspaper advertisement, and you must be as careful as you would be if you occupied fhe podium af a public meefing. People are funny, but you can't afford fo be, in your ads, unless you are certain of your sense of humor. People like thrills, but you can't risk scaring away whole families if mothers become frightened at your advertising. People like to go to the theatre, but they won't go a second time if you promise one thing and deliver something else. Weigh your words when you buy advertising space. Publicity Puts Picture Over Publicify is fhe blood sfream of show business. It creates the desire to see, the Inclination to ^ buy theatre tickets. It is word-of-mouth, at the source. It gets people talking, it makes them interested in what you have to sell, it provides the urge for enterfainment, the tendency to spend their amusement dollar in your bailiwick, rather than divert it elsewhere. But, remember, the publicity game is really a skill. You have to be born with a certain flare for it. When fhey say, "He's a born showman," fhey mean fhat he has publicity sense. P. T. Barnum had it, and all great showmen have it. Used with skill, it's great; used carelessly or unskillfully, it becomes dangerous. Some publicity is negative; and must be used with sure knowledge, or not at all. Good pictures provide their own publicity, for a safisfied audience goes away singing praises of fhe picfure — and your theatre. Opinion makers in every community are good publicity, when they see pictures at previews and go out talking them up, for your benefit. Promotion Is Profitable Promotion means providing something for yourexpense of fhe other fellow. It's smart showmanship to find ways to Include friendly merchanfs, dealers, businessmen in your community, in advertising and plans of yours, wherein they pay the bills and you catch a ride. And in a vast majority of things, this is legitimate and profitable for all fhe parties concerned. But it carries a serious public relations charge — a threat and a promise for the future. If you violate good faith or take advantage of ofhers, it will rebound to hurt you. Cooperation is a joint effort for a single objective. That means you must play ball, fairly and squarely, if you expect to win honestly. The golden rule was never more Important than in the business of promoflon for your theatre. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." If you make a deal that hurts a local merchant, you have diminished your own chances of obfalning friendly cooperation in the future, and you have diminished your theatre as a place of business along your own Main Street. They'll remember, long after the public forgets. Exploitation Means Effort T reason why some theatres use good explol 1 1 If Itation and some none at all is that explolta1 ^^V^^Vtlon is hard work, and requires sustained effort. You can't merely toss something in that general direction and then go away and forget it. You have to keep after exploitation to gain lasting results. It has to be inspired to be really good; it has to be ingenious to be desirable. It can't be something flat or insipid, or it kicks back against you. Instead of working for you. There's nothing sweeter at the box office than a good exploitation campaign, well carried out; nor is there anything more serious than one that turns sour. Good exploitation has made history in theatre business. The old type of specfacular sfunts, typical of the legitimate theatre fifty years ago, is out of date. Folks don't go for giving chorus girls milk baths or parking live lions in hotel rooms under the name of Mr. T. R. Zan. Those days are gone forever. We live in a more sophisticafed age, and therefore they don't fall for ancient gags as readily as they used to. But exploitation has more genuine possibilities today. Public Relations Means YOU and Good Manners M We are indebted to Mr. D. J. Goodlatte, man Nothing could so epitomize the basic theory of public rela 11 11 sging director of Assoclafed Brifish Cinemas tions for theafre managers as this well-spoken thought. If every 1 \ J 1 Limited, Golden Square, London, for the head theatre manager would post that good advice on his office line given to this final installment of "lOl Ways wall, and live up fo if, we would never have need for public fo Build P. R." It was contained in his excellent brochure, relations as we do, in this Industry, for we would gain and "You and Public Relations" which we reviewed in the Round keep the good will and respect of our whole audience, at the Table of August II, 1951. Mr. Goodlatte had many fine public point of sale, forever. Nothing could disturb our balance of relations Ideas in his booklet, but he summed it all up with power in the face of new compefiflon. We would have made fhe quotaflon above, "Public Relations Means YOU — With such substantial friendships af the source, we would be stand Good Manners." We cherished the slogan, and saved it up, ing on such firm ground, that nothing could upset us. to provide a proper flourish for the end of fhis series. — Walter Brooks MANAGERS' ROUND TABLE SECTION, JUNE 28, 1952 43