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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Newspaper advertising-movie listing
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Jonathan Smith
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 201
From: Youngstown, OH
Registered: Jan 2010
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posted 05-17-2010 06:44 AM
*lose-lose & Entertainment, forgot how to spell my last post, I guess ![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
35+ is "old people"? Lol, I guess that means, *I* am getting old. Happens to everyone, though, right?
My problem with the 'net is that it is fragmentary, and I find it to be incredibly difficult to target advertising to a specific market.
Facebook, and far more so, Twitter, I find to be cheezy and not suited to the purposes they are now being used for, at least with the names for stuff, like being "Friends" with everyone, writing on a wall, un-friending someone, and blogging.
Fandango, Movie-Tickets.com, etc. seem to be better and well-utilzed by the young crowd, but aren't their prices higher than the papers?
And there still seems to be some favoritism bullshit, at least with Fandango, where the theatres that pay more pop up first even if they are farther away from the zip code you type in.
I can understand giving paying subscribers preferential status over non-paying ones, but if it is really a zip-code search, the theatres should pop up in order of closeness that do pay.
Mike: What exactly is MailChimp, an e-mail blast program?
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Richard C. Wolfe
Master Film Handler
Posts: 250
From: Northampton, PA, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 05-17-2010 11:53 AM
Newspaper advertising… to advertise or not, that is the question? Yes, that is certainly a good question. There have been a lot of excellent points made here, but what to do about it isn’t easily answered.
Newspapers certainly don’t hold the prime position that they once did, but can we do without them completely? It depends on your situation. Your prime audience and your location will determine the answer.
If you’re a typical first run multi-plex that exists primarily off of the number one movie demographic, the 13 to 30 crowd, I doubt that newspapers would do much for you. However, if you’re an art theatre, a rep house, or a 2nd run, newspapers still have their place, but I wouldn’t depend solely on them. Your web site, e-mail newsletter, other internet listings and your telephone answering system can do the majority of the work for you.
I’m a 2nd run, small town single screen, and I advertise in the big city daily 4 days a week ( $55.00 a col. Inch): Fri., Sat., Sun. and Wed. during most of the year. I also run an ad every Monday holiday when I run an extra matinee, plus every Monday during the summer when I’m running matinees every day. The only reason I run an ad every Wed. is because I have a matinee every Wed. all year long, and that show is patronized primarily by senior citizens, and they still use the newspaper to find out what is playing.
I also run a 5 inch ad in 4 weekly newspapers as well, that cover my town and the communities directly touching mine, which gives me excellent saturation for a 5 mile radius around my theatre which has a population of about 50,000 people. The daily extends the coverage area to about 30 miles and covers 750,000 people. Those 4 weeklies only cost me a total of $60.00 per week which I think is a great bargain.
Mike made an excellent point: quote:
“The marquee itself gets more attention than everything else combined because we're right in the middle of town. I'm amazed that so many theatres these days have no outside marquee with titles. Doesn't anyone go to a movie on impulse anymore?”
The fact is that the marquees (roadside attraction signs) that are generally used today for multi-plex theatres are a total waste as no one can read more then 3 or 4 titles out of the 10 to 20 listed there, as they drive by. However, in Mikes and my situation where we are a single screen on Main Street in the heart of town, and that main street is often the only street that goes completely through town and everyone in town drives it every day on their way to work or school … that marquee is indeed the most important advertising media we have, and it’s FREE. Well… almost free. I spend a couple hundred dollars a year maintaining it, and $10.00 a week to pay someone to change it, but it’s still the cheapest form of advertising I have. I often watch people as they drive by, and there are very few that don’t look over and read the marquee copy.
One of my booking accounts, also a 2nd run single screen, dropped advertising altogether in that same daily that I use, as of about a year ago, and saw no drop in business whatsoever. It saved him $7,000, and in fact he’s ahead of last year thus far this year. I just can’t seem to bring myself to follow suite, but I’m definitely considering it.
A very large part of my audience is over 50, and they still read the paper. I therefore doubt that I’ll discontinue all newspaper advertising anytime soon, but I certainly agree that the effectiveness of newspapers has diminished greatly, and that day may very well come… someday.
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