Let me assume that you are located in a neighborhood section, which is catered for by one photoplay theater. There may be another in the next section, but, however desirable this theater, it will not produce so much business, for it is a trait of Americans not to walk further than is necessary.
If the exhibitor on your block favors slide advertising, the rest is easy, but if he is opposed to it, it is up to you to assume a resourceful attitude.
The chances are that this exhibitor issues a house organ of some sort, for which he is prepared to accept advertising from desirable local stores. Here, then, is your opportunity. If you have ever glanced over a slide catalogue, you will agree with me that slides, when reproduced in black and white, make dandy press advertisements.
Many dealers who believe in attractive slide announcements undo all their good work by following same up by stereotyped ads. in the theater house organ. It is, of course, a great advantage to have the former already prepared by expert advertising men, so the stock slide in the latter capacity would seem to leave little to be desired.
Contract for, say, three inches of space weekly, with weekly change of copy, for which purpose a suitable stock slide should be selected. Your slide manufacturer will willingly grant you permission to have cuts made of his slides and reproduce them, if you give him the credit. Your ad. will stand out prominently from the rest, and readers will admire its all-round excellence.
The question now arises as to what use you are to make of the slide. If there is another theater within easy walking distance, it would do no harm to arrange for a weekly change of slides. Between the two, you should hit the mark.
XXXVII.
HAVING YOUR MOVIE AD. SLIDES SHOWN TO THE BEST ADVANTAGE
Watching motion-picture screens is my hobby, and, incidentally, my business. Four times a week do I combine business with pleasure, and it is these on-the-spot investigations that have given me good grounds for asserting that the average exhibitor does not appreciate the fact that there is an art in showing your slides to the best possible advantage. He seems to imagine that they can be thrown in any slipshod way, so long as he can claim to have shown them according to arrangement.
He does not realize that he is under an obligation to you, represented on his theater screen by paid advertising. Were the local paper you favor to print your ad. full of typographical errors and badly blend the type faces, or place your ad. in the most inconspicuous portion of the paper, you would, naturally, be offended and be likely to transfer your advertising account to the rival publication. This is why I advise you and your friends to frequent the theater that carries your advertising and see if you are getting value for your money.
At a certain motion-picture theater in Brooklyn about thirty slides are shown at the end of every performance. You have only got to look at the faces of the spectators to realize the resentment caused by the bad practice. That number of slides at one time is entirely too many. The exhibitor of this type is attempting to cram the stuff down the necks of his patrons, whereas he should accomplish it in an unforced manner. The latter is easily gotten over by showing only several slides at the end of each reel. They are thus spread out and have a far greater chance of sinking in, because picture-play-goers are not called upon to memorize a lot at one gulp, so to speak. In this way the patience of patrons is not overtaxed. The exhibitor can never tell, when he puts over his all-at-a-time slide stunt, whether or not he is sending spectators away to his competitor a few blocks up the street. I have personally known exhibitors who have been unable to account for the falling off of attendance, yet the whole root of the trouble was the slide dodge.