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Motion He tore News
Making the Mare Go
IT is true enough that the quality of pictures in circulation today is by no means all it should be. And the business of getting the public into the theatre is suffering largely in that measure.
If there is one common cry from the exhibitor today, it is: “ Give me the right picture and I’ll get the
money! ”
* *
But this lack of quality is a sin of the past, not, so much, of the present.
The mediocre releases of today were made by past standards.
The larger producers today are fully alive to the situation — to the insistent demand for the better picture. Never before has there been such unanimity all along the production line — to sacrifice quantity for quality, to make the “ big picture ” regardless of any other consideration.
The reversal of policy, in fact, from quantity to quality,— is so sharp and pronounced that unless more producers get busy, and speedily, we will have a dearth of new productions next season — not enough even for first run consumption, let alone the needs of nearly three quarters of all the theatres which still change daily.
But is production our main problem today?
Yes, in a way. It’s a basic thing — assuredly.
But it isn’t our main weakness.
Our main weakness is distribution.
And distribution is weak — mainly, in the degree : that it is weak in exploitation.
X -*• *
Advertising is the power of this business.
Out of nine years study of its economics — from every angle — the writer can honestly give this as a supreme conviction.
Advertising is the determining factor.
It is — to an extent — in any business.
But there has never been a business under the sun — there may never be — where advertising governs values as it does in this.
* ^ * * *
What is the value of a picture?
No one knows.
Its value is what the public will pay for it. That’s the only standard.
And that — we assume of course the picture has a public appeal — depends — upon advertising.
A picture’s value is like a rubber band. Advertising pulls it out. Given any salable picture, its gross — its share to the producer, distributor, exhibitor — will depend upon the intensive advertising effort each puts into it.
*****
So, as we face the new season, we say with all earnestness, that advertising is the big factor.
It is the power that will determine the season’s gross.
Better pictures — yes, decidedly. The public expects them. But the public must be told about them. There must be promotion, exhibitor cooperation — advertising all along the line. The public must be appealed to — cleverly, irresistibly and as never before.
For one thing we’ve got to stop the blind effort put behind all product, regardless of its worth, regardless of its particular appeal.
Intensive effort, discriminating effort, all the effort the picture deserves.
That will be the yardstick measure of success this year.
The yardstick of advertising!
VOL. xxv JUNE 17, 1922 No. 26
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