Description
Book SynopsisAn important read for film studies and the history of marketing, Profit Margins exposes the fascinating truth surrounding the invention of cinema advertising techniques and the resulting rhetoric of class division.
Trade Review"Groskopf's book turns existing literature on its head by showing that advertising actually was in and all around cinema long before radio. . . . The author has collected a wealth of archival materials that enable him to carefully study the spread of advertising-related ideas and their adoption in terms of methods, devices, and business models."—Patrick Vonderau, author of Films that Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising
"In this meticulously researched, detailed and lively account, Groskopf unearths the lost connections between consumer advertising and the earliest American movie theaters. His fascinating illustrations and archival finds demonstrate that many current efforts to market to media audiences have long roots."—Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, author of Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy
"In Profit Margins, Jeremy Groskopf uncovers intriguing connections between the film and advertising industries in the early 20th century. Convincingly argued, fluidly written, and supported by an impressive range of archival sources, Groskopf sheds light on the formative struggles that defined the early theatrical experience and its business model. From this we see how today's digital advertising practices date back to innovations made during the early years of cinema."—Alisa Perren, Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: Advertising Looks at Cinema
1. The Front Cover Medium: Lantern Slides, Temporality, and the Commercial Break
2. Screen Sugar Pills: The Advertising Trailer and the Commercialized Intermission
3. Watch This Space: Peripheral Advertising Through Technologies
4. The Cinema Wants to Be Free: Parks, Tickets, and Advertiser-Funded Cinema
Conclusion: Intemperate Proclamations
Bibliography
Index
