Reel and Slide (Mar-Dec 1918)

REEL and SLIDE 33 HoA¥ to Reach the "Class" Audience HEN a manufacturer of a commodity comes to the point of putting his product on the market and calling the attention of his prospective buyers to what he has to offer, he first and all must discover just who his buyer is, where he is and how the buyer can most effectively, quickly and cheaply be reached. He selects the periodicals and newspapers which are read most widely among the classes of readers he is anxious to reach and he can easily get an analysis of the potential "pulling power" of every dollar he appropriates for publicity. The time has come in screen advertising when the same principles and standards must be applied ir} order to make this form of publicity effective and in order to get from its use the ma.ximum amount of benefit from the expenditure involved. The two mediums — periodicals and films — are almost identical ; simply change the word audience for readers. It is the same crowd, only you are speaking to them via a different medium, one that has many advantages over the other and vice versa. Postum Cereal Mills Lay Out Screen Campaign Same as Magazine Advertising — Correlate Films With Selling Plans By Willis H. Post (Of The Postum Cereal Mills.) Selecting an Audience Users of screen space are learning to select their audiences just as they select their readers. It is true that such selection in the case of moving pictures is not quite as easy as a general thing, but this is coming about gradually. Certain of the most progressive film companies are able to analyze the audiences they are able to reach and to give the advertiser something more than a promise concerning the number and class of people who will see his picture in the course of a given period. _ The Postum Mills have been using motion picture films for the past five years, and in that time much has been learned concerning distribution before the proper audiences. Our experience, naturally, concerns the exploitation of food stuffs, and our campaigns have been conducted along How the Postum Company secures effective screen advertising — note the labels on the boxes. lines best calculated to interest and "sell" the maximum number of possible users, in the most impressive manner and with the minimum waste. How did we set about to do this? In the first place, consideration must be given to the films themselves and what they are intended to convey — in other words, production. Production standards set, in other words policy, the problem of distribution follows. In planning our pictures we made no effort to disguise them in a plot or "play" because we believe the public, in theaters as well as in everyday life, seeks and appreciates mformation relative to the produces imparted in a serious manner. That is the spirit which mduces so many to visit our factories and the same rule must hold elsewhere. Although the visitor to the factory sees the beautiful pictures m the offices in their natural colors, and is impressed with the area covered by the numerous factory buildings, the observer of the film gets a more intimate knowledge of the_ many ingenious machines which displace so much manual labor and this is accomphshed by the numerous "closeups" which emphasize the salient features in the various processes. (Continued on page 40) IT SHOULD BE ^^omebody's Business FIFTEEN MINUTES of a straight industrial motion picture will tell your sales force and your customers more of your product than you could by word of mouth or letters in fifteen days. Films Of Business CORPORATION BUILDERS OF INDUSTRIAL AND PROPAGANDA MOTION PICTURES Candler Bldg.. 220 W. 42nd St.. New York to keep closely in touch with all the best new ideas in screen advertising. Methods of production, and distribution of commercial films advance and improve so rapidly that somebody must make this their ONL Y business. Wr MAGAZINE j Service Department attends to this business exclusively. And it is done for the benefit of its readers. Whatever you want to know about screen advertising, our Service Department can tell you That Is Our Business— and No Charge Write to Us Today