Moving Picture Age (Nov-Dec 1919)

30 MOVING PICTURE AGE 1 Ad Slides — Good and Bad | A Department of Criticism, Edited for Reel and Slide Magazine by Jonas Howard illllllllllllllllll | IIII1|III!III|IIIIIII1IIIIIIIII1!IIII1IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!IIIIIIII!IIIII!IIII[IIIIIIIW MR. PRINZ, the advertising manager of the Westinghouse Company Lamp Division, was talking: "For some time we have included lantern slides in our dealer help service," he said, "and recently we checked up to see how they were going. We found that there has been a steady increase in the demand from our dealers, which would indicate that there is a steady increase in their exhibitions. I do not think that a dealer would order slides unless he really found a use for them. "Very few dealers have any means of projecting slides except opportunities offered by the local theater. Therefore we assume that the local theaters are finding Westinghouse slides available." The lamp division of the Westinghouse Company is sending out as high as 800 slides a month. It is all part of a plan to back up the dealer who sells their lamps. While it is up to the dealer to secure showings, every effort is made by the company to help this work along. It has been found that the electrical dealers are responsive to the visual appeal and fully appreciate the value of screen advertising. Perhaps the company itself, by means of a persistent policy, has educated the dealer to show this appreciation. Which raises the question : In what lines of business have dealers most readily responded to a visual presentation of the goods they are selling? The writer has talked to advertisers in many lines, all of whom are users of the screen. The consensus of opinion is that it is not so much the line of business as it is the degree to which the advertiser makes the presentation of value to the dealer himself. With a strong line, the dealer can be made to use slides more readily than he can if the case happens to concern a weak or new line. But in every case the dealer must be plainly shown whereby his cash register is going to ring oftener, as a result, before he is willing to go to the trouble to arrange lantern slide showings in his nearest theater. * * * Unfortunately nobody can adequately check showings on lantern slides. Possibly the retailer could; but he won't. He doesn't know whether his slide is being shown or not; he trusts to the honor of the operator. (Breakage, alas! is no test.) I know of one concern using slides and films via dealers and they keep two men in the field, going around to check up on showings at all times. These men work in cities and districts where they know the slide service is being paid for. If they do not see the slide on the screen, the local merchant is notified. It is then up to him ot get what he is paying for. Operators, as a rule, do not care to run slides. They handle them carelessly and show them upside down often, and scratch them up generally. A slide that runs in the average small theater one week is ruined. But comparatively, physical damage to slides is a small item when the advertising value is considered. If 900 out of 1,500 slides get 21 showings a week each, they have more than paid their way. Most of them get that. It might be possible to mail out a questionnaire to a list of dealers, -asking them the simple question, "Are you showing our slides in your nearby theaters?" but the percentage of replies would be small. And this information would be of little use since the dealer can not go much further than deliver the nice, new slides to the theater man. He can tell you, perhaps, whether he has given the slides to the theater and arranged for their projection, but he cannot often tell you whether the operator is carrying out the theater man's end of the bargain. * # * Elsewhere in Moving Picture Age, the new Cortescope is described. This little instrument is given mention here because the writer recently examined one of them and because he believes that every salesman who believes in the visual appeal will concede the possibilities of this device. After all, the salesman's job is to create desire to own and therefore to buy, though he mav use many methods to gain his end. The cook may tempt the passerby through means of the sense of smell combined with the condition known as hunger ; the musical instrument maker may sell a thousand-dollar violin by permitting it to please the sense of hearing of a violinist. Even the sense of feeling may be of use to the tailor selling a fabric. The Cortescope offers the salesman an opportunity to let the customer SEE the goods he is going to buy, though it may be a thousand miles away. Now, we all know that a set of photographs will illustrate samples of heavy, bulky merchandise and that they can be easily mailed. But the Cortescope system enables the customer to actually see the samples for the reason that it presents a visualization of the same. Everybody knows what the old-fashioned family stereoscope was with its views of "Niagara Falls in Winter." The Cortescope works on the same principle, giving an image in relief and to all intents and purposes the article itself. It has manifold advantages in that it is pocket size and uses a slide which is simple, light and compact. Many firms are shipping complete Cortescopes clear across the country with a set of slides, by which the distant prospect can see what he is asked to buy though the salesman may not be on the job. There are many other uses of this novel edition to the stereo idea. * * * A New Orleans firm has used lantern slides in the presentation of its annual report to stockholders. It was desired that certain acquisitions of property, machinery and plants be shown in order to forcefully illustrate the expansion of the business. At a stockholders' dinner, these slides accompanied the report of the president and apparently with success, if we are to believe a correspondent, who writes further : "An automatic stereopticon was employed and it threw a picture on the wall. After the report was concluded, some humorous slides suitable for the occasion were projected. These were made to the order of the company and were part of a feature of the banquet." Statistical matter, accompanied by illustrations, always is most easily assimilated when projected on the screen, because the screen permits of unusual concentration and, if properly utilized, a greater length of time to study each element as presented. The International Harvester Co. tells the entire story of better farming by means of charts and slides bearing statistical matter, illustrated for greater clarification and interest. Interesting Bits for Screen Workers Several scenarios in southern California moving picture studios recently called for rainstorms, but the weather held fair, so the electrical engineer produced a $10,000 machine that turns on the lightning whenever needed while the rain is imitated in the old stage style. A photographer's arc light has been invented that is powerful enough for motion picture work and yet is so light and compact that when tripod and lamp are packed together they can easily be carried about. Colonel F. D. Whipp, fiscal supervisor of the Department of Public Welfare of Illinois, has been touring county fairs and grange meetings of the state showing the state elective officers and both houses of the general assembly in session, together with other scenes of constructional interest. An interesting list of motion picture films valuable for education has been prepared by the National Board of Review. One can take little journeys to every part of the world, or can dip into science, nature, mechanics, social or government activities by using a slight amount of energy in renting the pictures from the distributing organizations. The catalogue is unique and blazes the way into a region which promises to be opened up for intensive cultivation in the near future. The Hudson Guild of New York has been entertaining the youngsters on summer nights for several years in Chelsea Park. They have gathered 3,000 two times a week. Mr. Harap, the director, says theyr find the boys and girls like best one or two comedies nightly, with a short western or outdoors picture and a snappy news reel. They don't care for long dramas nor do they want education unless it is full of strange places, people and animals actually doing something every minute. The milder forms of serial are good if the summer shows can continue long enough to use up the entire series of two-reel episodes. The New York Public Library is trying an interesting experiment in working out an arrangement between the libraries and the neighborhood motion picture theaters. The plan involves selecting dramas drawn from standard literature and referring the audiences to the libraries and the readers to the pictures. In a letter to the editorial department Rev. D. Wilson Hillinger, pastor of the Bethany Presbyterian church, Trenton, N. J., writes : "The leading query I get from clergymen who know I have a machine is in reference to getting proper films and the approximate cost. These things are being made more and more clear in your magazine and I think will be appreciated."