The Moving picture world (April 1920-May 1920)

May '8, 1920 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 825 Advertising and Exploitation By Epes Winthrop Sargent Sometimes White Space Will Sell More Seats Than Four Times as Much Text Two examples from Manchester, N. H., point up the value of white space in advertising. The Star takes a double fives and the Eagle a pair of fours, and both houses fill the spaces so full of type that the value of the space is lost. A religious advertisement in the same section and only six inches deep completely overshadows them. It does not pay to take a small space EAGLE THEATRE MONDAY. TUESDAY, WKDNESDAY. MAIUH 29-30-31 DOLORES CASSINELLI "The Web of Deceit" EUGENE O'BRIEN "His Wife's Money" TWKEC^EE DAN is "AJwosi Married" BLANCHE SWEET to "HGHTI1^^<; dttSSEV JAMES K. HACKEtTln "THE GREATOt SINNER- STAR T M e:a I u. tL flu . CO»ILNC MON.-tL'ES.-WED, MARCH Zl-llkn normTtalmadge "A Daughter of Two World's" From LEROY SCOTTS Crwlts! Novel DUSTIN FARNUM "Durand of the Bad Lands" "«T DOC PAL Hji[f-Hoiir af L«iirh(«r • .U1.T MATUVFE— «o— IKXXT MKft TUIS OVi: Marion Davie* in '*Apri1 Folly" Cladn Brockwell in "The Devil'i Riddle" Two Overstuffed Advertisements from New Hampshire. and try to make up with big, black letters. It is better to use small light letters which will seem large in the space. These houses are handicapped by the fact that they run double features and must give two titles equal display, yet other managers, in other towns, can get apparent display in the same or even smaller spaces. They do it by studying how to get big effects with small type faces, and generally they find the answer in lighter faces. Bold type faces should not be used in limited spaces. They are for use in large spaces where there is plenty of room in which they can spread out and have their effect. For the small area the preference should be for light letters which gain seeming size by the relative proportioning of the lines. This is something the average manager does not seem able to undrstand. He does not realize that a large letter in a small space is too crowded to have effect. The smaller the space the larger the letter he tries to use, and so he defeats his end, whether it be newspaper space or a weekly program. Value is not a matter of blackness, but of conspicuousness, and the two are utterly different. —P. T. A.— Grew a Tent Into a Theatre FRANK E. Lee, of Three Oaks, Mich., sends in a local weekly in which he has five advertisements and adds that he has been in Three Oaks for nine years. He started in a tent, showing a single reel for three days and then changing. With the approach of winter he got into a store fit-up and in course of time sprouted this into a regular theatre. He has been a steady and consistent advertiser, and is not afraid to take an extra page to put over a special attraction. He is the leader of the local band, as well, and the issue he sends advertises a special benefit for the band at the opera house, under his management. With some houses changing hands two and three times a year, it is pleasant to find an old timer who has stuck. But Mr. Lee stuck because he went into a town, worked right, advertised— and kept on advertising. He gives good shows and scales his prices to match the current program, starting in at ten and twenty and raising for the larger features. —p. T. A.~ Another Cleveland Half Page in Which Type and Lettering Are Well Combined JUST as the Grauman style is a distinctive type, so the advertisements from M. A. Maloney, of the Loew theatres, Cleveland, are distinctly educative; particularly the Euclid half pages. It is not to be supposed that many advertisers will use half pages to follow Mr. Malaney, but this small reproduction looks well and the style can be followed where the space cannot be afforded. It is not so much a mater of how much space you use as what you do in that space, and a four fives would look just as well as an eight tens with practically the same design. For his second week Mr. Malaney is less apt to use a cut attractor as for an opening, but the plain announcement, backed up by press work, will probably sell a first run as easily as would a cut, and the dignity and appeal of this display would be hard to better. The border is perhaps a trifle too ornate. A more sketchy design might have helped in some small degree, but the main point is getting the announcement over, and this could not be bettered very materially. Another Euclid Half Page. There seems to be a method in this madness of Mr. Malaney for large spaces. He takes this half page and a matching half for the other Loew theatres in Cleveland, the Euclid running at the bottom of the first photoplay page, while the other display bottoms the facing page. As a result the Loew houses get the first chance at the prospective patron. He naturally turns to the photoplay page, and he sees only the Loew announcements. If he wants anything else he must turn the page. The chances of selling him before he turns the page are sufficiently strong to make the additional cost for space worth while. —P. T. A.— Rochester Tfieatres Vary Style and Get Distinction Without Too Large Displays ROCHESTER must be a comfortable sort of town to have a theatre in. The theatres mostly use double sizes or sevens and instead of sitting up nights trying to "fade" the other fellows, each house gets out a good design and stops worrying. They do not copy styles, apparently, but trust to a difference in the layouts to get a good show with a double five or six instead VICTORIA TO-DAY TO WEDNESDAY LARRV StMON in ■ " THE GAil'DENjoi^" MIRTI*^ PENIt ^^ ACTS Three Displays from Rochester Theatres. of going strong on black borders and similar devices in an effort to dominate the page. It is the better scheme where all wfll play the game right and not try to cut under. Then when one house has an exceptional attraction it can get a splash in a three tens.