This is topic Hey, everybody... let's show commercials... TWICE! in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-30-2004, 02:52 PM:
 
I called our digital pre-show support people the other day when I noticed a Hershey commercial running twice in the line up... not back to back, but one now, then another commercial, then the same Hershey commercial again.

They called me back and informed me that it indeed was not a mistake and that the "customer" (Hershey, I guess) paid to have the commercial run twice, and the customer gets what they want, so it runs twice. The person on the other end was a little short with me I suppose from answering numerous calls about this - which isn't my problem - and because of her tone, and what she just said, I suddenly became quite enraged.

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"Wait a minute... the customer gets what the customer wants? I have two thousand customers a day that pay to come through my theater that DON'T want to see these adds as it is, and now they have to watch one TWICE?? Now, they aren't just irritated for being made to watch them, but now they think that *I* am incompetent for putting an add on twice. It looks like an obvious and stupid mistake."

"The customer wanted it on twice. They paid twice, therefore it runs twice."

"It doesn't matter what your customer wants because without my customers, your customers will go away. And to my customers, it LOOKS like a mistake. The perception is that we don't know what we're doing. Are you trying to get people to stop coming to my theater? Are you trying to make our advertising revenue evaporate?"

"There's nothing we can do, the add has to stay."

"Yes there is something you can do. Explain to your supervisor how enormously frustrated and frankly pissed off I am at you guys for taking a decision that makes ME look stupid to every one of my customers. And explain that EVERYONE who works at this theater is embarrassed because of this. We ALL look bad. You, me, our managers, the staff, NCN, AMC, and Hershey. We all look like idiots now. Thank you very much. I hope the extra income was worth it. Then document this call, and send it up the chain to someone who might have a clue about what I'm talking about. And if no one has a clue why I'm so frustrated, have them contact me directly so I can explain it to them."

"Ok."

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This person is obviously a front line call taker, who has very little impact with company decisions, but I was so incredibly annoyed at this, I can't even begin to tell you.

Was I wrong?

Edit: Fixed spelling mistake.
 

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Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 06-30-2004, 02:55 PM:
 
I don't think so. I get annoyed at that Hershey ad running a few times too. Before F-9/11, I saw it run 3 times!

I remember when I saw Saved! that I saw the Fantana ad run twice too. And this was one after another. It they want to run multiple ads, give us something different than the same spot.
 

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Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 06-30-2004, 03:01 PM:
 
A while back at the Cinemark here, I saw a teaser for Riddick, the Cinemark 20th anniversary trailer, then a full Riddick trailer.
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-30-2004, 03:08 PM:
 
And we've had these problems before. Some ad running twice sometimes back to back, sometimes not. Ads showing up mysteriously in front of Walt Disney Pictures films, etc. And I'm already irritated that this stupid company makes their line up changes on Friday, then goes home for the weekend, and we end up looking like boobs for the whole weekend.

Then to tell me that this time it's not a mistake!?!?
 

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Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 06-30-2004, 03:09 PM:
 
Popables ran twice before Return Of The King. Made me remember them and purchase them at the candy store...
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-30-2004, 03:14 PM:
 
How did you feel at the time you were made to watch it twice, Eric?
 

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Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 06-30-2004, 03:16 PM:
 
Richard, you had to sit through Fanta twice?!
I feel bad for you. So far, the only person I've met that liked that ad was one of a group of elementary school girls who 'Liked the ad with the girls dancing with the pop'
 

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Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 06-30-2004, 03:27 PM:
 
Oh it was awful (commercials in theares are awful to begin with), but fun also...because here in SF there is a long running tradition to boo and hiss every commercial played. The audience really let it out on that one... (Although the steam is running out on all that, and even we here in radical SF are succumbing to the commercials, just realizing they're going to be there and there's nothing we can do about them... except go to Century Theatres where there are no commercials.
Loews and AMC are you listening...)
 

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Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 06-30-2004, 03:36 PM:
 
Yes Steve, I had to sit twice through it. That's not as bad though when you consider I had to run it over 30 times daily whenever I worked through May. 8 screens times 4 shows a day roughly.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-30-2004, 03:45 PM:
 
Yes, I've seen the local AMCs showing that commercial twice. I keep meaning to mention that to the theatre, but I didn't realize that it was intentional. Hmm...maybe I should still complain.

Could you "accidentally" "lose" that ad or "accidentally" have too many scope (or flat) copies and not enough in the correct format? Accidents in the workplace are a terrible, terrible thing....
 

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Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 06-30-2004, 05:20 PM:
 
Completely rediculous.
As much as I dispise the "Bod Man" trailer which features two mini-ads (each 15 seconds) at least the two 15 second ads are different.
 

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Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 06-30-2004, 07:12 PM:
 
Scott -- I think Mark said it was a digital pre-show

Which means, that it's not really a mistake at all. Intentional or otherwise. Because digital is perfect, and there are no mistakes, so there's no need for the Projectionist/Operator to "mess with" the ad lineup.

That's an interesting point, though. If something IS totally "off" with the digital pre-show, such as an inappropriate ad for a G or PG film, or ads playing with Disney films as Mark mentioned... there's no way for the projectionist or theater manager to correct it, short of unplug the pre-show projector, which would probably violate all sorts of contracts which were drafted by the incompetent ad company.

Here's a devient idea... bring a piece of black construction paper with you to the movies next time. Get there early, prop it up on the port window in front of the ad projector, (stadium theaters) and "block out" the ads! -- still gotta deal with the sound, though.

=TMP=
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-30-2004, 07:30 PM:
 
Hey!! Thomas and I finally agree on something!! Sweet!!

Managers should have the ability to edit the line ups. The edits should be logged to a file viewable by anyone. All changes should also be logged and emailed to a quality control officer at NCN who will be charged with finding out why the mistakes happened in the first place. And anytime we have to fix a stupid NCN mistake in the line up, they should get a bill for $10,000.

That's the way it should be. Period.

One of two things will happen. Either the mistakes will stop, or we'll upgrade all of our houses to CP 650s AND XD10s in no time.
 

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Posted by Thomas Dieter (Member # 2507) on 06-30-2004, 07:57 PM:
 
Okay, I've been a projectionist for about 4 years now, and I have yet to hear of a Digital Pre-show. Both theatre chains that I have worked for run Slide Projectors between shows. Now I have heard that Regal is running some commercial before their shows, but I don't know the entire extent to it. The only complaints that I have had to worry about when it comes to slide projectors is a stuck reel with the same ad showing over and over again.

On a final Note, i will say that I totally dislike slide projectors before the show, and if i happen to see one ever, the Digital Pre-show.
 

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 06-30-2004, 08:46 PM:
 
Well, I just hope Hershey is paying more than twice as much to do this. I thought it was an error the first time, but realized it had to be deliberate after seeing it on several screens at the local AMC...

--jhawk
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-30-2004, 10:06 PM:
 
John, about a month ago, AMC had their Gift Card snipe playing twice on just about every screen in the country equipped with a digital pre-show projector. THAT was a mistake!

Take nothing for granted.
 

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Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 06-30-2004, 11:41 PM:
 
The only problem with that idea, Mark, is that, I belive, NCN is a wholly owned subsidiary of AMC.
 

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 06-30-2004, 11:46 PM:
 
There was a problem with an upgrade that was done to the NCN digital preshow a little over a month ago. It was very annoying and we got dozens of customer complaints every round. The complaints ahd to go all the way up the ladder before they finally went back to the old software.

Typically if a commercial runs twice it is a mistake. The booth operators dont typically watch the preshow and it is often overlooked by the theater staff. If you inform someone after the show is over they can resolve it.

I do agree though, commercials suck at the movies.
 

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Posted by Nate Lehrke (Member # 1460) on 07-01-2004, 04:17 AM:
 
Is this the same with TV adds? I always seem to see the same exact add played back to back. I guess they think I'll remember them more; but since I can't name a specific example, it must not be working.
 

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Posted by Gunnar Johansson (Member # 1661) on 07-01-2004, 05:19 AM:
 
I´ve seen commercials for the same company run twice in Swedish cinemas as well, but not the same ones. There´s ususally a story involved, then you see some other ads and come back to the earlier one to see what´s happened. It really works, and makes people want to watch the whole package so as not to miss one.

For instance there was a commercial for a chocolate bar. A guy in a gym working out, trying to impress a girl, and trying to hard. The weightlifting bar pinned him down. THe girl goes to his bag and takes his candy bar. Several commercials later it´s the same gym, at night, the guy´s still pinned and the janitor is eating a candy bar from the guys bag.

Showing the same one twice would probably make me remember it but not in a good way. They say that there´s no bad publicity, but in this case I´d go out of my way not to buy stuff from companies that bore me that much...
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-01-2004, 07:33 AM:
 
Gunnar,
Now THAT would be cool. As cool as a commercial can be, anyway.

Mike,
I know. I'm only being partially serious with the bill we'd send them. My point is that there should be accountability. If there is a stupid mistake, and it's negatively impacting the presenation or the image of the theater and its staff, the theater managers should have the authority to shut it down until it's fixed. Here's your motivation. No more ad revenue until its fixed.

There was a problem several months ago where there was picture and no sound. And they said "You have to run them that way until they're fixed. You don't have the authority to shut them off." They weren't fixed for at least a day - which I think was a Saturday.

I'm sorry, but that's bull shit. It's unprofessional to leave it on in a half assed state. We need that authority.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-01-2004, 07:53 AM:
 
It's amazing how easy it is to "accidentally" leave a piece of cardboard sitting between the (DLP?) projector and the port glass....

Seriously, I'm all in favor of upholding stuff like ad contracts, even if we don't like it, but picture-with-no-sound is completely ridiculous (assuming that the program is supposed to have sound in the first place). That's far worse in my mind than having two copies of the same ad in the program. I would definitely find some way to kill that show, as it makes the theatre and the advertisers look stupid, which benefits no one.
 

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Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 07-01-2004, 12:27 PM:
 
If I had walked into a theatre with a picture and no sound, even if it's the pre-show, I would have immediately walked out and got a refund... That is just plain sloppy, unacceptable, and insulting to customers.
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-01-2004, 12:36 PM:
 
Whatever happened to "common sense" and "showmanship"?

If either picture or sound are out, it's "Dead Air" and the advertiser can demand a make-good, and the audience will perceive the theatre as incompetent. Better to skip/cancel the showing.
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-01-2004, 01:54 PM:
 
Decisions that impact showmanship (or the lack of it) are slowly being migrated out of our hands and up to the ivory tower.
 

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Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 07-01-2004, 02:21 PM:
 
Richard, I had to run that one just as often each day during its flight. Usually I went back to check sound during the other trailers rather than risk getting it caught in my head.

Speaking of booing, the Catwoman teaser has been bringing out the jeers in nearly every weekend evening show we've programed it on. I haven't seen the new two minute trailer yet... not looking forward to it either.
 

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 07-01-2004, 02:36 PM:
 

quote: Mark J. Marshall

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There was a problem several months ago where there was picture and no sound. And they said "You have to run them that way until they're fixed. You don't have the authority to shut them off." They weren't fixed for at least a day - which I think was a Saturday.

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quote: Chris Hipp

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Just unplug the projectors.

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quote:

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Corporate sponsors cannot be disappointed!

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Running ads without sound is "disappointing" and doesn't fulfill the contract. Checkers would likely report it.
 

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Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 07-01-2004, 03:30 PM:
 
We keep getting calls from our advertising agency, Unique Screen Media, claiming that advertisers want their ads played louder on weekends. About a month ago, this led to a visit from one of USM's tech guys, one night, to do sound checks in our adutioriums of all non-sync levels. He reported back to me that most of the levels, as they were at the time, were just fine, but the advertisers just had different ideas of what patrons want, preshow: A sound level adequate to have a conversation and notice the ads; OR... to have the ads put right in your face, louder and more like a trailer sound setting.

My guess is that the majority of people want to be able to talk with the people they came with if they came long enough before the show's start time, not to be advertised at. But there's still enough people that believe that the ads are coming from the same source as the film to want it loud...

As the story goes, we raised a few auditorium levels, but the tech and I came to the consensus that most of the levels were just fine.
 

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 07-01-2004, 03:37 PM:
 

quote:

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If there's any unplugging going on, we get the Big Brother calls from NCN headquarters ... "Hey, #14 isn't on ... oh, and the 2:00pm in #5 started too early!" They know!!!

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quote: John Pytlak

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Running ads without sound is "disappointing" and doesn't fulfill the contract. Checkers would likely report it.

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No gripe there. But if there's an equipment issue such that it runs without sound, projection reports it to whatever control hub needs to know so it can be resolved. Hopefully this would happen way before any checker would file a report. But unplugging it to avoid the whole issue, of course, is worse ... because there exists a log somewhere of the pre-show not running, and as long as it looks good on paper, there's no problem, right?
 

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Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 07-01-2004, 04:20 PM:
 
quote:
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If there's any unplugging going on, we get the Big Brother calls from NCN headquarters ... "Hey, #14 isn't on ... oh, and the 2:00pm in #5 started too early!" They know!!!

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Well, I'd approve of that ONLY if they did the same with the actual movie- "Hey, the framing's off on Such-and-Such-movie, and the automation tape shows up onscreen on this one!"
As for making it look like the projection staff doesn't know what they're doing, seems like that's the goal of some companies. (I thought green bands got cut off of trailers because whoever spliced them didn't know they were part of the trailer!)
There's a lot worse things than running the same ad twice- I'd do that if ordered to, just don't ask me to cut out part of it or run it misframed or anything like that. As a booth operator I felt it wasn't my job to dictate content, but the more annoying an ad presentation gets, the sooner customers will finally get fed up enough with it to quit coming- I'm personally against advertising in theaters, but at this point the CUSTOMERS are as much to blame for it as everyone else, since they tolerate it without complaining and keep coming back. If enough people simply stopped going to theaters that run ads, or boycott the products advertised, the practice would stop.
 

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 07-01-2004, 04:21 PM:
 
I think the bottom line on this issue is that it is your theater's and your company's reputation on the line. If running a show (preshow or feature) is acceptable presentation for your theater or company then that is fine. However, I want my theater to have a better reputation then that. I would rather nothing run at all then to run something with just audio or just video. As long as I have logged the problem with NCN then it is up to them to get it taken care of, in the meantime I will do what I need to do to maintain proper presentation. If that mean disabling the projector/sound, then so be it. There are plenty of other theaters in my chain/market that dont give a flip and I need to make sur eI set my self apart from them.
 

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Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 07-01-2004, 04:50 PM:
 
"There are plenty of other theaters in my chain/market that dont give a flip and I need to make sure I set my self apart from them."

Did that- just seems to annoy everyone else in the chain though
 

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Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 07-09-2004, 03:47 PM:
 
It's amazing how many different opinions we get on the digital pre-show thing. The first time I saw a digital preshow (The Regal 20), the sound was the same as during a movie (too loud for ads, since advertisers tend to push up the average loudness while peaks are still about the same). It was annoying.

The second time I saw "The 20", there was picture, but no sound. I preferred this tremendously! I'd never complain about "The 20" with no sound!

Yesterday, I saw a movie and "The 20" was there, with sound as loud as the movie, or louder. A commercial played twice while my friend and I were sitting there. It's a 20-minute thing, and they have to repeat a commercial within a couple of minutes of showing it the first time. Fucking annoying.

That last time, they didn't even align the projector with the screen. Although the image top matched the screen, the left, bottom, and right all lacked about a foot reaching the screen edges in "flat" mode. (The screen was opened to scope mode when the film part started).

Fuck "The 20". I think it's the most terrible, unprofessional thing ever done to hurt the theatre experience.

If you sit in the front half of the auditorium, you can even see the pixels!

And I'm so sick of

Wanta Fanta, blah blah blah
Wanta Fanta, blah blah blah
Wanta Fanta, blah blah blah
Wanta Fanta, blah blah blah

...
..
..
.

I'm thinking of starting to deduct for presentation problems with "The 20" in my theatre reviews on hsvmovies.com . I haven't yet, but I'm keeping notes in case I change my mind. The current problem is if I prefer "The 20" without sound, it's hard to deduct for that defect. I think it looks very unprofessional to have the digital projector not aligned with the screen, however, or to have the digital projector setup for "flat" before a "scope" movie in an auditorum with top/bottom masking, so the screen gets smaller for the movie.

The Regal Hollywood 18, with its "20", now has the feel of a big-screen TV instead of a movie theatre.

The problem is theatres' customers coming to see the movies are now secondary in importance. Companies paying to have the ads on the screen have more say in operations than the customers' preferences.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-09-2004, 04:13 PM:
 
John Pytlak mentioned ad checkers. I've been doing monthly checks for Regal here for about a year. I just got a letter from them informing me that monthly checks will no longer be necessary. I guess everything is so close to perfection in theatres that there's no compelling reason to do any checking.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-09-2004, 04:54 PM:
 
Either that or perhaps they don't approve of the fact that you have outed yourself by name and face to the managers of that region by talking about it here. The last time I checked, you are supposed to do that "undercover" and the management/staff should not know you are doing a check.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-09-2004, 05:07 PM:
 
There's no secret about it whatsoever (at least not with Regal). Checkers interact with staff e.g. concessions, to see if they're using the right promo popcorn bags or whatever. Checkers are required to get the manager's signature if no ticket is purchased, or if some expected promo isn't there (standees, box office handouts, or concessions junk). And since the checkers have to theater-hop, the staff has to know who you are and why you're there (3 screens are ad-checked on each visit).

If checkers were undercover, and trying to check 3 screens, there's no way they could get away with it (most of the time, not here anyway). Also, you'll note that I've never discussed the results of my checks -- I'm not a complete idiot (yet). At least I don't think I've ever done that...
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-09-2004, 05:57 PM:
 
Ok. That just seems to defeat the purpose letting the staff know you are there checking up on them.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-09-2004, 06:26 PM:
 
I guess it could be argued that the staff might be more careful about making sure the required promo stuff & ads are being used if they know someone is checking up on them periodically and reporting to "headquarters". The way it's set up, where everyone knows what's going on, it seems less adversarial and more motivational than if the checks were done in secret. About the 3rd time I did one of these, it was pretty obvious that everyone working there knew why I was there, not just the managers.
 

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Posted by Daniel Fuentz (Member # 1684) on 07-11-2004, 09:39 PM:
 
My mom used to do checks several years ago, and we almost always got the blind checks. Mann always had pre-printed questions about the projection quality of the movie itself, while the UA checks we did we would always note scratches and bad sound in the "other comments" section. There weren't pre-show ads in those days, so we just had to remember the trailers that ran.
 

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