On your visits to the local motion-picture theater you will have noticed that the exhibitor is prone to using announcement slides of forthcoming photoplays. On this kind of slide an important scene is reproduced from the picture and tinted in natural colors, while the blank space is used to good advantage with brief description of the film.
These are stock slides, of course, but if you wish to plan an advertising campaign along similar lines, it is up to you to have some photo-slides specially designed to conform with your individual requirements.
The best way by which to present the personal appeal is by having a photograph taken of the exterior of your store. You can then forward same to a reputable slide manufacturer, who will make a slide out of it in natural colors and add the desired description.
The slide should have two marked effects upon spectators. Firstly, visualize for them exactly where your establishment is situated, so that they may be able to recognize it on sight, and, secondly, it will leave a favorable impression.
XXXIII.
ARE YOUR SLIDES TRUTHFUL?
A new thing is liable to be contaminated with the faults of its elders, but this can not be said of motion-picture slide advertising, which has been kept remarkably clean and truthful.
It is to the credit of the slide manufacturers that they have never accepted any dirt-money. In other words, they have refused to make slides for loan sharks, whisky manufacturers, undertakers and such like undesirable advertisers.
Even had this type of advertiser got his slides made by hook or crook, he would yet have to pass another barrier, who had no desire to present obnoxious announcements before his patrons.
Another thing, slide advertising has steered clear of exaggeration. I am not absolutely sure whether it is due to the indirect appeal or not, but I do know that the announcements, for the greater part, have maintained a high standard of truthfulness.
Here, again, the influence may be directly traced to the slide manufacturer, who, when preparing a stock slide for a jeweler, for instance, has to make it apply equally well to jewelers throughout the country.