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Author Topic: Hey, everybody... let's show commercials... TWICE! Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 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. ------------- "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." ------------- 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.  |  IP: Logged Richard Greco Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1180 From: Plant City, FL Registered: Nov 2003 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Jeremy Fuentes Mmmm, Dr. Pepper! Posts: 1168 From: Corpus Christi, TX United States Registered: Jan 2004 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 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!?!?  |  IP: Logged Eric Hooper Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 532 From: Fort Worth, TX, USA Registered: May 2003 posted 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...  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 06-30-2004 03:14 PM                    How did you feel at the time you were made to watch it twice, Eric?  |  IP: Logged Steve Scott Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1300 From: Minneapolis, MN Registered: Sep 2000 posted 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'  |  IP: Logged Eric Hooper Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 532 From: Fort Worth, TX, USA Registered: May 2003 posted 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...)  |  IP: Logged Richard Greco Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1180 From: Plant City, FL Registered: Nov 2003 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 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....  |  IP: Logged Dominic Espinosa Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1172 From: Boulder Creek, CA. Registered: Jan 2004 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Procyk Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1842 From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 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=  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Dieter Expert Film Handler Posts: 234 From: Yakima, WA Registered: Jun 2004 posted 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.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 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  |  IP: Logged

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