Motography (Jan-Jun 1918)

1182 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. XIX, No. 25 Clever Methods of Advertising PUBLICITY THAT MAKES FOR PROFITS Toledo Exhibitors Good Advertisers Edward A. Zorn Particularly Alert, Using Large Space in Every One of the City's Three Papers THE right kind of newspaper advertising inevitably reflects something of the man who wrote or inspired it. If it doesn't then it is faulty and partially ineffective. There is an "I" element or a "me" element that has to be put into printed salesmanship. You find this element in the two largest motion picture advertising accounts of Toledo, Ohio. The writer has ranked Toledo as the fourth city in advertising efficiency, but ever since doing this he has wondered if Toledo is not pushing Cleveland hard for third place. One of the most alert advertisers in Toledo, if not the most alert, is Edward A. Zorn, manager of the Temple and Alhambra theatres — "Edward A." as a literary courtesy and "Eddie" Zorn in point of fact. Zorn is of the size and dimension that make great infielders in baseball — nervous, full of vitality, rangey and covering much ground rapidly. He has the newspaper temperament and agility of mind. He plays with the plot of a motion picture as a newspaper editor plays with news. To him a picture possesses plot for the sole purpose of being transmitted to the public via the newspapers. In other words, he handles his shows as if they were news, which is, of course, the correct way of exploiting an amusement. Zorn knows, of course, that humanity is interested first of all in itself and secondly in others. He knows that personality is the biggest and greatest human interest power in the world. He knows that Mae Marsh or Bill Farnum, or Madge Kennedy or Mabel Normand are known to more people individually in Toledo than any citizen of Toledo is known to his fellow citizens. The mayor might walk down his city's main thoroughfare unrecognized by more than a hundred people, whereas Mabel Normand or Bill Farnum would be followed by sixty per cent of the pedestrians in sight and require the police for protection. Knowing all of these things, Eddie Zorn and H. C. Horater, his co-manager, advertise on a large, liberal and able scale. In the Toledo Blade on Saturday— almost every Saturday — you find the Temple carrying 200 lines deep by five columns wide or 225 lines deep by five or six columns wide. In the Toledo Sunday Times you will find this space duplicated and in the Toledo News Bee space of large dimension. There are just the three papers in the town and Zorn and Horater use them all. On the same days the Alhambra carries as large or larger space, not as an occasional departure, but regularly. Other houses in Toledo that are big users of newspaper advertising space are the Princess Paramount Theatre, the Colonial and the Hippodrome. Exhibitors in certain "hard towns" would consider the newspaper co-operation given in Toledo almost ideal. As a matter of fact, as intelligently as newspaper co-operation has been developed there, it is still limited more than it should be and more than the revenues derived from motion picture advertising warrant. This is true with the single exception of the Toledo Sunday Times, which carries an eight or ten-page section devoted primarily to the screen and secondarily to the theatre. Incidentally, the theatre in Toledo is effectually and finally drowned by the more progressive motion picture exhibitor, who has cast dignity and dry-as-dust traditions to the winds and learned to be human in print. MON. TUES. WED. I THURS. FRI.SAT. MROTN0N CASTIE JHB33S isMiive TYRONE FRANCES uiz : L 1M EXTRA ADDEi attraction GiarlieChapun IfisNewJob" "A Modem Lorelei A Wonderful .Spectacular Production with a strong gripping story An advertisement of the Strand Theatre, Toronto, Canada, in the Toronto Star, that compels attention because of its strange design. The background instead of being white is black, and the lettering instead of being black is white.