What's New? (Nov 1966)

“BUD” BARKER DISCUSSED THE PROBLEMS FACED BY THE PUBLICITY DEPARTMENT We have entered into a battle to gain the public’s attention ... The PUBLIC’S EYE. The economic experts tell us that over the next ten years Canadian advertisers will increase their advertising expenditures by 68 percent. You can appreciate the impact that this tremendous increase in advertising dollars will have on all means of advertising and marketing . . . Newspapers, Television, Radio, Billboards, Bus Cards, Etc. You will appreciate the Competition We are in to get attention—The Public’s Eye—for our product. When | tell you that recently we have found it extremely difficult to buy television time in Toronto. A few weeks ago we were forced to buy a Television Package in Buffalo for ‘Fantastic Voyage’”’ opening in our Imperial Theatre. Our local television stations were sold out except for a few spots at the dinner hour and in the late late shows. For ‘The Professionals” opening this week in Toronto we again were offered spots that the exchange and | agreed were useless ... and we had $1000.00 to spend on television. For this attraction. Fortunately we were able to arrange a good radio campaign for this date. | say fortunately, because the Key Radio Stations too, are showing us the S.R.O. sign today. In Toronto, we just haven’t the number of TV channels available to absorb the advertisers money. 3 The answer, the experts tell us, is for T.V. t use the V.H.F. or V.H.F. signals that are available and do not interfere with present television signals. But very few sets today are capable of receiving these high frequency signals, and how many owners of today’s television receivers would pay for the necessary converters to receive these signals? Our competition in this Battle for the Public’s Eye is not too concerned today about obtaining more exposure .. . For their products. Their products, their “Line”, will be on the shelves tomorrow,— Next month and next year. He can shop for time months in advance. But, what about us? Our product — our “line” — changes every week, and some weeks we're not too sure what our line will be the following week. How, then, do we catch the public’s eye in this Battle? Some say we should concentrate more on newspaper advertising. That, as | mentioned earlier, the newspapers can always add extra pages to absorb the additional advertising. But the publishers are not as anxious as you may think to enlarge their newspapers. This would mean increasing the staff, longer press times, additional operating expenses. Longer press runs mean late delivery to your homes. The publisher is aware that if his newspaper arrives late, it is of little use to his advertisers and his revenue will drop. Television — Radio — Newspapers — Posters — All battling for the flood of dollars and the public’s attention. Let’s take a look at the market—The people— that is causing this mammoth revolution in the advertising business. We know that today’s Market is younger— richer — Better educated quality conscious and, what is extremely important to our business, has more leisure time. How do we in the theatres reach this market? How do we get their eye? We must keep ourselves aware of their current views about Motion Pictures and all other forms of entertainment . . . of their favorite entertainment personalities and slant our advertising accordingly. At the local level’ our outside promotion must be exciting and different. We must not fall into the trap of repeating the old stunts to catch the eye of this new and younger market. We must be cautious that we don’t use the etcetera approach in our advertising. And in our business, we've all noticed the etcetera approach .. . The large pyramid style title with the letters hewn out of the rock... ‘Ben Hur” followed by “El Cid” followed by ‘Beau Geste” etcetera, etcetera. We must continually change and update our thinking about selling motion pictures. Your advertising department is always looking for that ‘something’ to change the stock or standard approach to advertising that is found in most of the press books. That “something” that will catch and hold the viewers eye. In this battle for the Public’s eye, your advertising department is capable given the opportunity of getting your product attention. All we ask is to be permitted to SELL THEATRE TICKETS the best way we know how. To give you some idea of the battle we're in to get the Public’s attention, every day the average person is bombarded via the Ajr, printed page and posters by 2,200 advertising messages. Many of these important features are what we in the advertising department call specials. “Special because the advertising of these attractions will be spelled out to you. What newspaper mats to use and which day you will use them. “Special” because the contract for you to show Continued on following page