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Went to the new multiplex in my area to check it out. It was truly a marketing marvel from the $13.00 popcorn and soda combinations at the snack bar to the incessant onscreen advertising.

But I felt a bit it was just a bit over the top when I went to the restrooms to find that at eyelevel above each of the urinal stalls was an advertising sign for local merchants. Each sign was divided into four quadrants with a different merchant for each quadrant. From what I could tell each stall had a different sign with four different merchants.

I believe the signs were a product of something like the "Whizz-Bang Sign Company" and the sign said that you too could advertise on this urinal by calling 1-800-Shake Now.

Maybe I am just old fashioned but has our industry really sunk to this level? How many of you participate in this sort of advertising?

Had I been using the facilities, the temptation to "aim a little high" would have been strong. Assaulting your patrons, in any business, with that type of advertising is the height of dollar desperation. I would NEVER consider bathroom urinal or stall ads.

All the stadiums use them and most of the chain bar and grill restaurant. I did pass on them when I was approached.

I can say I do believe in the preshow ads. Not the rolling stock that look like TV ads anymore but the slide type ads that run before show time only. I make these myself and they provide several thousand dollars of ad revenue a year. I market them as $1 per screen per day and then I even give discounts to long term customers. Most of my advertisers say I am the cheapest ad they buy.

Agreed. On-screen advertising, if done minimally and tastefully, can be a valuable extra revenue source. Too often the "big boys" abuse their customers with way too many ads.

A Hollywood theater has small LCD screens above each urinal showing trailers, but I wouldn't consider that as annoying advertising as much as entertainment.

Saw Rat today at a local 10-plex where ONE onscreen ad for a law firm was played over and over and over... everyone in the audience was annoyed and PO'd, as they should be. The depths some establishments stoop to is truly disguisting.

Kinda funy that this topic comes up.

What I would like to do - Before show time tun a mixture of: tv ad that I use for my video store right across the street, trailers for movies that out on video that folks could rent of buy from my store, trivia, and other ads from other businesses. Probably equal amounts of each.

Your thoughts?

Would not that onscreen ad for that law firm be in violation of BV's no rolling stock rule?

Even IF it was Digital?

I would have gone to the managment, and even to the law firm and made a point of how P.O. customers is NOT going to get this law firm ANY business, may even loose some!

ttroidl, or anyone else for that matter, what is Buena Vista's "no rolling stock" rule, and how would it apply to pre-show onscreen ads?

I have contacted the law firm and made them aware of what was happening. I would have told management myself, but I was the only parent with 4 small children, and I make it a rule not to leave my children alone in a theater... ever.

There are the still, "slide-type" ads, whether projected by slide or computer (like Powerpoint). Those are OK with Disney shows. Then, there are the film, or motion-based "rolling stock" ads, like TV commercials. Those are not OK with Disney shows. This is a policy they've had in place for quite awhile now.

As for getting caught, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they have a process for dealing with theatres that run these ads anyway. We once had a technical situation at our indoor, where the credits on a Disney show were cut off, something like 20 seconds before the end of the show. A customer thought we'd done that on purpose, got mad and actually called the studio. Within something like 3 days, the question had worked its way to my booker, and then to me. We had a satisfactory explanation for what had happened, but it does illustrate that they do care that the show is presented as provided.

dsschoenborn, how do you make your own slides?? We don't currently run any ads anywhere because the last few companies who did it for us went broke. We thought about doing our own, but don't know where to start

You can use powerpoint to make and project the slides but I do not use it to project. I wanted something simple for the projectionist. I have some software that will take jpeg images and put them together into a movie file on a DVD. You control the fade and time of the slide. (I think the company is no longer in business because of other software they sold to copy DVD's) What I like about the software is it makes a DVD so all the projectionist has to do is play the DVD.

Sorry guys, but I don't buy any excuse for the necessity of on screen advertising. I'm working on a project now that if I succeed will not include any on screen ads except coming attractions. I've been in this business far too long and heard far too many complaints about in-theatre ads to risk alienating my customers by using them. We are supposed to be in business to entertain and most people find ads more annoying than entertaining. If I can't make it by providing the best in screen entertainment then I have no business being in show business.

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Bob Allen
The Old Showman

[This message has been edited by revrobor (edited July 03, 2007).]

Amen, Bob! If you can't make it without showing pre-show ads, then you have problems elsewhere. Those who show on-screen ads are only thinking of themselves and their own wallets, not the moviegoers. As the subject is titled, "Anything for a buck".

The only slideshows that seem enjoyable are the trivia ones all others are a pain in the a** and a sell out!

We haven't been running any ads for a couple of years, however lately we have been having a lot of calls from people wanting to advertise on our screen. I think slides are fine to have up for preshow times for those who like to sit in the auditorium early