Another dandy plan, if you are in the custom of offering premiums, is to present each person making a purchase of a certain small amount with a post-card of a popular screen player. You can purchase these for $3 per thousand and have the selection you prefer, for you will naturally require more of Mary Pickford and Charles Chaplin than players of lesser renown.
I am not acquainted with any instances where retailers have adopted the preceding plan, but if same can bring full houses on dull nights to motion-picture theaters that distribute such pictures to spectators, then it is a positive thing that it will help along your slack days.
Popularity contests are all in the fashion to-day, and it is possible for every town to arouse the patriotism of the fans by permitting them to vote for their favorite player, presenting, perhaps, the one heading the poll with a suitable souvenir on behalf of the town. This stunt, of course, must be worked in co-operation with the near-by motion-picture theater.
It can be arranged that each patron on entering receives a voting blank, which he is to fill up and return to the girl in the pay-box. The exhibitor should announce on a slide that the standing of the contestants will be announced each day in the window of your store.
You will secure, for practically no expense at all, plenty of publicity, resulting in increased business.
XLII.
TAKING ADVANTAGE OF ERRORS IN PHOTOPLAYS
Every now and then a motion-picture producer comes a cropper. With the speeded-up production methods at present prevailing, he can seldom give adequate attention to the little things that count. It matters little whether the play is historical or modern—it is almost certain to contain at least one error of some kind. Now, photoplay fans pride themselves upon their smartness in detecting these silly slips, and therefore an added stimulant would please them greatly.
In addition to your ordinary slide at the local movie theater, why not have same preceded with one worded somewhat as follows:
“If You Find a Mistake Pertaining to the Dry-goods Business in a Photoplay Screened at This Theater, We Will Present You with 25 Cents’ Worth of Goods Free”?
The first thing is to determine as to what constitutes an error. In one photoplay a daughter ran away from home and returned to the family fold five years later with the same dress on her back.