Boxoffice-December.02.1950

New Approaches to Sharing
Advertising Costs Needed
Elmer Rhoden jr. says that, both parties willing, there are
many ways to create profitable co-op campaigns
By ELMER RHODEN Jr.
I certainly was gratified when I picked up
the October 14 issue of BOXOFFICE and
found that men like Charles Einfeld, Howard
Dietz. Max Youngstein and R. E. Smith had
taken the time to read and comment on my
first article. I would like, however, if I may,
to elaborate a bit upon my first effort, and
try in some measure to answer Mr. Youngstein's
comments on advertising in the industry.
I agree with Mr. Youngstein in part where
he says it Is a bad situation where only two
and a half to three and a half per cent of the
exhibitor gross is spent on advertising. In
passing, I would like to say our circuit normally
spends from six to seven and a half per
cent, but on many of the top pictures the
percentage is much higher than this. However,
we must all admit one of the easiest
ways to "throw sand in a rat hole" is through
advertising.
Mr. Youngstein states that distributors now
have to pay 80 per cent of saturation booking
advertising. Let's take this statement and
throw it on the sizzling platter. If a picture
has a saturation booking such as Columbia
is now handling on "Petty Girl" in our territory,
the distributor, of course, has to go in
and spend approximately $3,000 to $5,000.
On this picture, Columbia also arranged for
me a 50/50 advertising split over my normal
advertising budget. I think Columbia was
very smart in having the Petty girls come into
Kansas City, having their pictures taken
with our exhibitors, getting front page pictures
and stories in many of the small papers
because of this contact with the exhibitor, all
of which worked out well for Columbia, the
local theatre and the picture.
Although I doubt that the distributor had
to pay 80 per cent for the saturation advertising
bookings, I will state, and I am
certain, that this picture in this particular
territory is running way ahead of the picture
in any other given territory. Columbia,
of course, would have to verify this. Having
this saturation booking, I am sure has enabled
Columbia to sell the picture in this
territory much easier, receive higher terms
and boost the results over what it would
have done normally.
It must be understood, if, as Mr. Youngstein
says, the distributor pays 80 per cent of
saturation booking advertising, he first would
make up his mind that he was not going to
be satisfied with the picture on a normal
gross, and would prefer to go in for local
advertising and spend 80 per cent of this
special cost and by so doing, boost his gross
by approximately 30 per cent. It would seem
to me that this is good business and cheap
advertising. In fact, one Columbia man
stated to me that he was surprised at what
the actual campaign cost amounted to, as it
was. in his mind, most reasonable.
Mr. Youngstein must also realize that the
saturation bookings, the enthusiasm of local
exchange and the spot advertising carries
over also to the exhibitor, and I am sure the
exhibitor would put out twice the effort that
he would have, had the picture broken
normally in his territory and received no
special attention.
I would like to see the film companies participate
m advertising, on the same basis as
the picture has been sold. For instance, if I
buy a picture on scale, and, against the scale,
the picture earned 40 per cent, I would like
to pay 60 per cent of the advertising and the
distributor 40 per cent. For the same reason,
if I bought a picture for a firm 30 per cent
the distributor would pay 30 per cent and I
would pay 70 per cent of the advertising. By
doing this, I believe you create in the exhibitor
advertising ideas and merchandising ideas,
Ceveral weeks ago, Elmer Rhoden
jr., son of a veteran midwest
ex)ubitor, and film buyer for Commonwealth
circuit, wrote an article
for BoxoFPicE in which he
called attention to the need for
improved pressbooks, concentrated
mass regional openings and neio
approaches to advertising of motion
pictures. His provocative article
drew comment from many industry
leaders, all of which subsequently
was published in Boxoffice.
I7i the accompanying article,
Rhoden expands on his original
suggestions and offers some
evidence of how his circuit has
hayidled the problem of localizing
nationally prepared campaigns.
which originally made up such a big part of
our business.
As far as saying that the advertising budget
is set up at 600 lines, I can say that our circuit
does not set any advertising budget to
apply on all pictures in all towns. If the
manager is spending too much money, it is
easy to figure if his percentage of advertising
is going way up and his percentage of
gro.ss not responding. If one of our theatres
comes to this stage, we naturally study with
the manager his advertising costs, but otherwise,
it is up to the individual manager to
handle his own situation.
I notice Mr. Youngstein states on pressbooks:
"Why not five or ten pressbooks, why
stop at two?" It was my thought, in my first
article, that with two pressbooks. you could
hit the two major advertising markets, and
the same thought applied to trailers. However,
I am advised these are expensive. I'll
go along on this thought, but maybe this is
penny-wise and pound-foolish. Just how expensive
are they in the light of what they can
do to reflect additional grosses on any given
picture? I stated in my previous article how
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's picture, "That Midnight
Kiss" was brought over my particular
circuit from below average to average business.
If we had played this picture off with
the original trailer. I am sure our film rental
would have been much less than the cost of
the second trailer. If the second trailer cost,
just using figures, should be $20,000 and the
rental on the picture was increased $40,000
you could still pocket $20,000, thereby
I'M JUST THE GUY-
— Who Con Prove Movies
t