Boxoffice-August.28.1948

Adue/dlUnja
Jill
Sixth Sense in Film Merchandising,
A Psychological Study of Selling
by BEN ADLER
Specialists count these days. As always,
there is room at the top for the best, the
most skillful, the most practical.
The hall of advertising fame includes such
inveterate third dimensional, practical leaders
as Howard Dietz, Mort Blumenstock, Si
Seadler, Charles Schlaifer, Stan Sruford,
Barrett McCormick, Maurice Bergman, Max
Youngstein, Al Zimbalist and Lou Lifton, to
mention just those whose names are most
familiar to exhibitors.
They are the pace-setters. Their efforts,
study, research and actual experience is
poured into all advertising media for motion
pictures that reaches every city, town and
hamlet. It is their responsibility to lay the
initial groundwork for reducing sales resistance
on product which the exhibitor later will
offer to his patrons.
It is almost impossible to recognize the
importance and the magnitude of this responsibility.
Without this preparatory effort,
without this groundwork, without these basic
THE contributor of this article is well known
to readers of BOXOFFICE. Adler is art
director for Warner
Theatres in New Jersey.
He is also established
as art and advertising
consultant
for several major and
independent distributors.
A previous article
by Adler, "Making
Big Ones Into Little
Ones," appeared in the
Showmandiser section
July 26, 1947. In it,
Adler gave many pointers
for theatremen on
Ben Adler
how large mats could be utilized for small
budget ads. His experience and his talent
make him a;n authority on theatre advertising.
The Showmandiser section is happy to
pass his ideas on to the readers.
selling angles, the exhibitor's selling job
would be far more difficult. True, revamping
is a necessary part of the exhibitor's
job, but that is a requisite to meet entertainment
appetites in diverse communities.
Basically, the advertising leaders in our industry
probe every single exploitable angle
and provide for the working man behind the
boxoffice a gold-mine of solid ingredients
culled from talents of production mechanics.
BROAD AID TO EXHIBITOR
These are the pressbook advertisements,
the refined product in actual art and copy
thinking in a variety of sizes and layouts.
It is noteworthy that no other industry makes
available to the retailer such a vast reservoir
of practical salesmanship. It is noteworthy
that no other industry has perfected
the functional use of third dimensional advertising
as well as the Barnum-magicians
associated with motion pictures.
Third dimensional advertising—the process
is eternal. Sales views change with the times.
You must find out what the patrons want,
give them what they want and advertise it
the way they want it. In this technique, a
sixth sense is developed. An instinctive, intuitive
method of reaching the theatre patron
through advertising and ballyhoo. Tlie
finished newspaper advertisement is the result
of such fundamental elements as good
layout, copy, type, art and lettering.
The well-designed advertisement is styled
immediately to direct all attention to itself
and in so doing seems to embrace the feel of
one, two or all of the five senses.
Illustrations which accompany this article
serve to illustrate how the senses are automatically
brought into play as the reader
looks at the advertisement.
Fir^ there is the visual sensitivity (sight)
activated in the ad for "The Search." Vision
being the most complex of all special sensitivities,
most of the readers' effort is directed
towards getting the brain thinking from solely
a visual interpretation of the sales message.
The auditory sensitivity (hearing) is brought
into play through various ingenious devices.
The ad for "Deep Waters," as an example,
calls upon the auditory sensitivity as well as
the eye for interpretation. This is achieved
by the caption, "The Sea Is a Woman-
Beautiful . . . and. Like You .
Here we find a feeling of vibration and
rhythm which the eye will pass on to the
ear. The lower portion of the advertisement
on "The Emperor's Waltz" serves as another,
more elementary illustration. This method
employs the use of musical notes, the openmouthed
expression of the characters, which
the eye will pass on to the ear in a series of
musical tones and sounds.
In the "Key Largo" ad, we see how the
cutaneous sensitivity (touch) is stimulated.
Here the responsive advertising chords are
activated by surface contact. (Bogart's hands
with Bacall's face). Although qualitative differences
exist between various pressures, pain,
cold, warmth, etc., this sense becomes involved
when the ad man succeeds in making
the observer feel that he can reach out and
touch. The prospective buyer should be placed
in the vicarious position of the ad subject
who is experiencing the sensation we are
creating by art or copy. The ticket buyer
finds himself imagining that he is Bogart.
Tire sensation is his. A scene showing two
persons dancing in embrace will automatically
invoke the cutaneous sensitivity.
AROUSING SENSE OF SMELL
Visualize for yourself an incense burner
with a wreath of smoke trailing upward in
the foreground of the advertisement illustrated
for "Atlantis."
Here we would have the necessary
elements to arouse the olfactory sensitivity
(smell). Inmiediately the eye transmits the
picture to the brain, the observer is unconsciously
awai'e of an oriental background.
The olfactory sense comes into play, stirring
memories of scents which he associates with
orientals, the odor of burning incense, perhai>s
a perfume. The olfactory sense is excited
through various other devices, flowers,
particularly those which have a distinctive
scent, culinary dishes, grassland or farm
32 —634— BOXOFFICE Showmandiser : : August 21, 1948 \\