Moving Picture World (Sep 1916)

1824 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD September 16, 1916 the house. It is given the reader to make him Interested. He read* about pictures and the players and in doing so he cannot help seeing those display programs. It is more a film weekly than a weekly program in the proper sense, and the items are well chosen. Our only comment by way of suggestion is that he started too big. It will cost money to hold to that form and he cannot afford to back down. It would have been better to have started with an eight, but with so good an issue, if Temple is at all alive, there is no reason why he should not sell his space on the cover pages for enough to pay the entire expense of the edition, or at least the greater portion of it, and if the town is large enough it should show him a small profit in the long run, because he is getting out something that will be read all the way through and that, therefore, it will pay to advertise in. Not all programs show a profit to the advertiser, but when the stuff will be read; if It makes an appeal, the house program is better for the trade advertising than the daily paper. It stays in the home longer, is read when one has leisure to read — instead of being hurriedly scanned for the news and then thrown aside, and it is more thoroughly distributed, reaching many the daily paper does not reach. That is about all we can offer in the way of comment, that and the suggestion that the front cover page be remade to carry a larger house title. The cut used is too small and too far down the page. It should rise to the top and be better displayed. If all of that matter is also run in the local paper through the week, probably the composition cost is cut down considerably. Bad Morality, but The Famous Players' Exchange, Philadelphia, is one of those with a helpful house organ. It is only a four-pager printed in a passionate purple, but it almost gives three or four good hints. Here is one. The morality is poor, but the idea is good. Vary your stuff now and then. The item reads : One of the biggest advertising men in this country once told the editor of "Pointers" that no advertising idea was original. It was a broad statement to make, inasmuch as we always considered him an originator. He was candid in stating, however, that everyone of his ideas were "stolen." A clever advertisement is nearly always copied in all parts of the country — we do it ourselves. For instance : In writing your copy for next week's shows, just take a Saturday Evening Post and look over the ads. The one that strikes your fancy will in nearly every case prove satisfactory if you just substitute your own copy. Your friends can see pictures at any theater, — But Paramount Pictures can be seen only in the best theater. There's a Paramount Theater Here ORPHEUM THEATER To give you the idea : Opposite is a sample ad which could be used in nearly any form. The editor happened to be glancing through a magazine and saw the ad. It struck his eye on account of the brief wording and white space. The copy in the upper right hand corner read : "Your friends can buy anything you can give them — except your photograph." In the bottom of the ad was the key line "There's a photographer in your town. Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, N. Y." Just try this idea, and see if you cannot get up some very attractive copy. Anyone can do it, and no one will mind your having stolen the idea — and — striking ads are read quickly. Mail List Stuff. The Rowland and Clark theaters, Pittsburgh, just ooze suggestions. The latest is a chaser for the mailing list. They announced that the Film Forecast for the Regent would not be continued to the addressee unless he filled in and returned the post card inclosed. This is old stuff. Some such checking up at intervals is essential if the list is not to bo burdened with deadwood. The novelty lies in the chaser. The week following instend of a portrait cut in the front page frame was this: NOTICE! For the convenience of (hose of our patrons who overlooked returning the postal card requesting the Film Forecast be mailed each week, we are again sending them the Forecast with card inclosed. Should same not be in your copy, will you please use coupon printed on inside front cover page? THANK YOU ! No one is going to overlook that. And while we are at it we maj as well reproduce the text that was used in making the request. It is a double mailing card, perforated, but printed for mailing only on the return half. This is addressed on one side and gives the proper blanks for name and address and remarks on the other. This text appears above : WE ASK YOUR AID. Requests that "The Film Forecast" be mailed each week are being received in such numbers that we will be compelled either to refuse further requests or eliminate all but those we know desire the "Forecast" mailed. . . . Will you assist us in our aim to serve each aiike, by returning attached card in case you wish your name continued on our list? The Rowland and Clark Theaters. Just tuck this away in your ideas file against the time you need it, for you will need it some time if you stay in business and — in reverse — you'll be more apt to stay in business if you need it. Udells. Here are a couple of Dave Udell advertisements from the Majestic, Paxton, 111. They illustrate some good box work, though paneling is apt to mean extra expense for composition. But sometimes the extra cost for panel work means the difference between an advertisement that is TONIGHT Georje Ade's Sparkling Comedy 'Just Out of College" t'itu Sb*a turn mnpil, s "Is Ihe Counlry Prepartd !or War?" Judfe for Vcwrsdl Neil Tuesdij. seen and one that is not. The form on the right is particularly good where you have to tight a mass of black type advertisements. If the cost of paper keeps on going up Exhibitors will ~ave to turn more and more to the newspapers instead of programs and throwaways, and it will pay to commence to study newspaper layouts now, if you have not already done so. Carpenter's Scheme. George Editor Carpenter, now that he has become a real manager of a real theater, is getting out some good ideas (though he has forgotten to send us any) and one of these appears in a recent Real Reels. In effect, it is no more than the fashion show on a small scale, small enough to match your town. You arrange with the large stores to loan their dresses and models, get up a pretty stage setting, and let models promenade across the stage as they do in some of the news weeklies. Announcement should be made of the dress model and the store loaning the garment, and if some practical woman can give a brief description of the style, so much the better. The announcing can be done by cards or slides. In the preliminary work you advertise the store and make the store advertise you, and you both win and at the same time pack the house with women and their escorts. The scheme is of value only when the styles change in the fall, winter, before Easter and as summer approaches, but it is good for a boom four times a year and can he made a feature each time. You must Jo a little hustling for it, but if you play it right you can make it something that will pull from the other nearby towns. Humor. One of the funniest things we've seen lately was In the V-L-S-E Pals in the shape of a form letter from the assistant advertising man of one of the constituent companies telling Tom North how he could get up newspaper advertising for the daily papers If an exhibitor asked him. And North printed it, though he knows more than his correspondent and could give him a large earful and only be starting in. A Pink V. P. The Garfield, Chicago, sends in a vest pocket program 2%x4%. The choice of color is not a happy one. for pink seldom works well, and this