You can’t merely state on a film that Bondin, the famous actor, derives great enjoyment out of your preparation—it’s too crude. But you can film an interview with your worthy customer and introduce some home-life scenes, not to forget his testimonial of your goods visualized. This would produce an exquisite blend of entertainment and advertising.
All in all, it is action by which you have to tell your story. You have, as a matter of fact, to regard your proposition from the angle of the man from Missouri. You can take the public behind the scenes of your works and convince them that the goods are produced under the best of conditions. The picture is likewise given an educational touch because an industry is being unfolded at the same time. Then, if you want to bring out the important selling points, you engage a writer to incorporate them into a comedy or dramatic photoplay. And so I could go on giving examples of introducing life into the ad. story. Action is the life and soul of the film industry.
Bear in mind, too, that it is the quality that tells, not quantity. I have seen efforts along these lines that contained material for a half-reel subject, yet they were unduly extended to two reels, boring an audience for forty minutes instead of entertaining them for ten minutes. Picture-goers are quick to resent padding, and your film may defeat its purpose. A good way to detect this beforehand is to arrange for its projection and try to place yourself in the position of the average movie fan.
This padding is often done by the smaller fry so as to make as much as possible over the deal. But if the advertiser places himself in the hands of a reliable industrial film concern, he may rest assured of them not taking undue advantage by charging for a lot of superfluous footage.
II.
MOVIE ADVERTISING FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF A FAN
You may hardly credit it when I assert that motion-picture audiences are the most critical in the world. They do not outwardly show their disapproval of things, but after they resolved that the photoplay was here to stay, anything as a motion picture would no longer satisfy them. So the film producers had to humor the folks who had made their wealth, and to-day the fans have been educated up to such a pitch that nothing but the best will satisfy them. Here, then, is the class of readers represented by moving-picture publicity.
The obvious conclusion is that advertisers will have to follow in the path of the ordinary producer in order to obtain the greatest value out of this new advertising medium.
A talk with an intelligent motion-picture fan, as I found, is very interesting. “I would like your views on ad. films,” I asked.
“With pleasure,” she replied, and forthwith got down to business.
“I must say that they are considerably more interesting than the advertisements that meet your eye in the newspapers. How nice it is to watch an industry on the screen and be taken through a big manufacturing plant. It is an education in itself, and it never strikes you as though it was intended as a boost, although the particular thing—the point the advertiser wishes to bring home, I believe you call it—leaves an indelible impression on you.