Imponderables

by David Feldman

  This is the theater's average cost for a large bucket of “buttered” popcorn that might retail for two to three dollars:

  Popcorn— 5 cents

  Butter Substitute— 2 cents

  Bucket—25 cents

  Yes, the bucket itself is the most expensive component of your popcorn purchase. Even if the Rialto were to use “real” butter, which most consumers can't distinguish from imitation, it would only add three more cents to the cost.

  Remember that the Rialto has netted $5000 from the admissions to the first week of the James Bond movie. But it will gross almost $10,000 and will net over $8000 from the concession stand. And on the fifth week, when the Rialto nets only about $1000 from admissions, it will earn almost $3000 extra from food and drink sales.

  Considering the importance of popcorn, the largest grossing concession item in profits, why would exhibitors deny the tradition of popping their own corn? Even in the 1980s, a good majority of theaters still pop their own. Many exhibitors believe that popping their own corn adds luster to what is an impulse item. The sound of the popping and the aroma of fresh corn and (usually) fresh oil is tantalizing to the vulnerable. And it is slightly cheaper for theaters to buy kernels rather than purchase already popped corn from a food distributor.

  But the crucial question remains: Does on-site popping increase sales? A growing number of concession experts at the big movie chains believe that there is no evidence that on-site popping affects purchases one way or the other. Most of the big chains do not have a strict policy at all on the question. While one theater chain, Walter Reade, told Imponderables that its sales are higher in sites with on-premise popping, a representative from Loew's disagreed strongly, arguing that none of the research and none of Loew's internal experiments support the contention that consumers are driven into even a frenzy-ette by their proximity to exploding kernels.

  There are plenty of reasons why managers dislike on-premise popping. Equipment can get messy and smelly, offending both workers and potential customers. Poppers can also break down, and as simple as it may sound, managers must constantly train high-turnover employees how not to wreck the equipment. Commercial prepopped corn is uniform in size and taste, whereas homemade popcorn is subject to the vagaries of oil temperature and stubborn kernels refusing to pop. Most important, theaters never run out of prepopped corn. No manager wants to see his sales force frantically loading the popper while customers wait impatiently in line, contemplating bolting for the theater.

  If there were much consumer resistance to prepopped corn, you would see machines in every theater lobby in America. But the quality of packaged corn can be as good as fresh-popped. The crucial element in consumer acceptance of popcorn is its moisture content. Moisture is the enemy of popcorn, and “old” popcorn can be restored by being placed in the heating chambers that virtually every concession stand possesses. Left at room temperature, popcorn reabsorbs moisture from the atmosphere. In the warmer, at an ideal 135-155 degrees, the moisture is driven out. The lesser moisture in theater popcorn is what makes it taste better than its packaged, unheated counterpart found at supermarkets or ball games.

  If concessions are the crucial moneymaker for theaters, why aren't stands more adventurous in their offerings, and why don't they offer more choices?

  The key to this answer is a favorite word of all food purveyors—turnover. The theater owner wants to be able to process as many customers as possible in a short period of time. Now that double features have become a thing of the past for most theaters, concession stands must brace themselves for an onslaught of customers arriving at approximately the same time. More than 80 percent of all concession sales are completed immediately after the ticket purchase, before the customer has taken a seat in the theater. Nothing will turn off a potential customer more than long lines at the food stand. The fewer choices a customer has to make, the less anxiety the customer feels and, most important, the faster the customer is likely to decide what to buy. Most concessionaires have found that when they introduce new products, such as chocolate chip cookies or frozen yogurt, it eats into the share of money that their old products would have garnered but does not generate additional revenue or attract patrons who didn't previously buy food at the theater.

  Loew's has found that by decreasing its number of food and drink options, it can generate faster turnover without causing any consumer resistance. It purposely does not emphasize its candy display and provides only 12 options, since it has found that any more choices only tend to befuddle the customer and slow down his or her decision-making process. Even so, candy provides about 20 percent of Loew's concession sales.

  Hot dogs provide about the same profit margin as popcorn, but their gross sales are minuscule in comparison. Hot dogs are provided partly as a meal substitute for those taking in a movie at the lunch or dinner hour. Hot dogs are problematic because, unlike popcorn, they can't be resold the next day. concession stands can sell only a limited number of hot dogs efficiently. With the rotogriller, the horizontal contraption with rotating silver tubes, hot dogs cook quickly but can shrink during movies considerably shorter than Lawrence of Arabia. The pinwheel cooker, the ferris wheel arrangement where spiked hot dogs rotate over a heating element on the bottom, cooks fewer dogs more slowly but at least doesn't turn quarter-pounders into cocktail franks.

  Frozen desserts are a particular bane to concessionaires. They represent about only 1 percent of sales. Bon Bons are the biggest frozen item only because the theaters can sell them with a hefty profit margin. If theater owners tried to sell gourmet ice cream cones, they would have to charge several dollars a scoop to maintain their profit margin, and then pay for it in messier theater floors. Freezer cases are particularly vulnerable to employee ineptitude. If a worker turns off the freezer switch by mistake, profits melt along with the ice cream.

  If brussels sprouts would sell in theaters, concessionaires would find a way to cook and sell them. American audiences simply reject the attempt to foist any products other than the big three (popcorn, soft drinks, candy) on them. The concessionaire merely responds to what the consumer wants. If we really cared that popcorn be popped at the theater itself, it would be.

  How do the networks sell advertising time when live programs run longer than scheduled?

  Who knows how long the Academy Awards will last? Or the Super Bowl? Certainly, the networks don't. With thirty-second commercial spots fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars, you can be assured that big money is at stake. Obviously, networks would like to sell commercials during overruns, but how can they sell time when they don't know if they are going to have it? And what about the local affiliate, which usually airs its own ads at 11:00 P.M., when the Academy Awards is just getting to the important nominations?

  When they air an event that they know has the potential to run past its allotted time, the networks try to sell advertising spots on a contingency basis. ABC might approach Kraft and say: “Do you want to buy a spot on the Oscars after the third hour?” Kraft would argue that ABC can't guarantee placement of the ad (after all, in 1985, the Oscar broadcast almost came in on time). ABC would counter with a reduced price—something on the order of a 30 percent discount—to compensate Kraft for the possibility that the commercial will not air. ABC is happy that it has eked out some gravy for commercial time it would have otherwise not sold. Kraft is happy because it gets a bargain rate and reaches an audience likely to hang in to find out who won for best picture. Likewise, overrun time on sports programming is likely to be a bargain: Viewers will stay tuned to see who wins the contest, and afternoon events that run long tend to bleed into prime time (in some parts of the country, at least), when the number of sets in use is higher.

  Why don't sponsors jockey to buy overrun time? For the most part, commercials are bought by advertising agencies representing sponsors. Commercials are usually designed to influence specific demographic groups, and advertising time is bought in order to reach a designated number of that group with
in a certain amount of time. Sponsors tend not to be as concerned about “bargains” (they know approximately how much it will cost them to reach each thousand of their targeted audience) as they are about reaching that audience efficiently (they don't want to sell life insurance on Falcon Crest, whose audience is predominantly female when most of their customers are male) and quickly.

  Many companies use live programs (sports, awards shows) that might overrun to introduce new products, announce improvements and changes in image of products, since specials and sports are exciting and glamorous environments in which to showcase their “exciting news.” When a company is making such an important announcement, it is imperative that commercials run as scheduled, to coincide with its products' hitting the stores.

  Networks aren't always successful at selling overrun time, however. If not, their best strategy is to use the vacant advertising time to promote their own shows. Ever since ABC used the 1976 Olympics to successfully hype its prime-time line-up for the fall, networks have become acutely aware of the power of promotion within important television events to increase the initial tune-in of regular series. ABC used the same tactic with the 1984 Olympics to promote Call to Glory. The operation was successful (the pilot received a huge rating), but the patient (and show) died.

  The last option of the network, and by far the least desirable, is to use up the extra commercial time by running free ads. When networks haven't sold time and haven't planned extra promo time, they will often run ads at no cost to the sponsor rather than run public-service spots. Public-service spots denote to the viewer that no commercial time could be sold, a failing the networks do not want conveyed, even subliminally, to the viewer.

  When network overruns impinge on their affiliates' time (11:00 P.M. E.S.T., 10:00 C.S.T.), the local station usually loses the revenue from commercials already sold for that period. In most cases, local stations sell time in “strips,” meaning that sponsors buy, say, five 30-second spots during the 11:00-11:30 P.M. period, Monday through Friday. The station may place the sponsor's five spots on whatever day or days it wishes to. If the network preempts its time, the local station will simply place the ad on another day. If the station were totally sold out of commercial time for the quarter and the network preempted it, the station may have to refund the sponsor's money unless some kind of trade of time slots can be negotiated. It thus isn't hard to understand why local affiliates don't appreciate even planned overruns, such as theatrical movies that are longer than two hours. Although local stations profit from the limited number of commercials they can sell per hour during the network lineup, they can make more during local programming, when the network doesn't have its finger in their pie.

  Why are U.S. elections held on Tuesday?

  Reformers are calling for weekend elections in order to increase voter turnout. Before we take precipitous action, perhaps it would be best to study why our founding fathers, with due deliberation, chose this day for citizens to exercise their most precious duty.

  Nah. History won't help us a bit, except to surmise that the selection of Tuesday as Election Day was just a cosmic accident. Professor Robert J. Dinkin's studies on voting in provincial and revolutionary America reflect the haphazard beginnings of elections in the fledgling democracy.

  In provincial America, there was no single standard date for balloting in the thirteen colonies. Voters had to travel to their county seat to mark a ballot; smaller precincts did not yet exist. Most elections in the northern colonies were conducted in midspring or early fall so that snow wouldn't prevent far-flung voters from arriving in time, since a trek of twenty-five miles or so by horseback was often necessary to reach polling places. The larger colonies would often allow voters more than one day to vote. Dinkin observes in Voting in Provincial America that “Maryland allowed the polls to stay open as long as the candidates could show cause that additional voters were en route, even if it took a number of days. Heated contests in Baltimore, Dorchester and Frederick counties thus frequently lasted three or four days.”

  Lest we imagine that our forefathers were much more pious than we, willing to embark upon long voyages in order to do their part for the common good, it must be added that voting was often more of a social occasion than a civic one. Election Day was a big to-do, with drinking and carousing the order. Crowd control was a major problem, since provincial capitals and county seats did not have the facilities to handle the influx of visitors.

  After the Revolutionary War, election dates within each state became more standardized, but there was little uniformity among different states. Monday and Tuesday seemed to be the most popular days, but elections continued to be held mostly in spring and autumn. After 1776, most states instituted more polling places so that distant voters need not travel to county seats. Localities still had the right to leave polls open for more than one day and to set their own hours for the polls to remain open.

  The first Tuesday of November was established as the date for presidential elections prior to the election of 1848. Many states still conducted their elections on Monday. Dinkin men-tions that the phrase “As Maine goes, so goes the nation” stems from the fact that Maine's elections were held on the second Monday of September; along with Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania's October elections, Maine's voters were thought to provide a barometer of public opinion that might foretell trends relevant to the presidential election in November.

  The importance of these October elections was so manifest that these states were infested by national party leaders who used greenbacks and arm-twisting tactics to cajole midwestern voters into seeing things their way. By the mid-1880s, the political pressure reached such a pitch that the “October states” gave up their early contests. Although Maine held on to its Monday-in-September elections until 1949, most states saw the wisdom in uniting state and national elections, and despite the few diehards, states chose to conform to the federal election choice of the second Tuesday in November.

  Why do people look up when thinking?

  Medical doctors have a nasty habit. You pose them a particularly though Imponderable and they answer, “I don't know.” Most medical and scientific research is done on topics that seem likely to yield results that can actually help clinicians with everyday problems. Determining why people look up when thinking doesn't seem to be a matter of earth-shattering priority.

  Ironically, some serious psychologists have decided that this question is important, have found what they think is a solution to the Imponderable and, most amazingly, found a very practical application for this information. These psychologists are known as neurolinguists.

  Neurolinguists believe that many of our problems in human interaction stem from listeners not understanding the frame of reference of the people speaking to them. Neurolinguists have found that most people tend to view life largely through one dominant sense—usually sight, hearing, or touching. There are many clues to the sensory orientation of a person, the most obvious being his or her choice of words in explaining thoughts and feelings. Two people with varying sensory orientations might use totally different verbs, adjectives, and adverbs to describe exactly the same meaning. For example, a hearing-oriented person might say, “I hear what you're saying, but I don't like the sound of your voice.” The visually oriented person might say, “I see what you mean, but I think your real attitude is crystal clear.” The touch-dominant person (neurolinguists call them kinesthetics) would be more likely to say, “I feel good about what you are saying, but your words seem out of touch with your real attitude.”

  Neurolinguistically trained psychologists have found that they can better understand and assist clients once they have determined the client's dominant sense (what they call the client's representational system). All three of the above quotes meant the same thing: “I understand you, but your words belie your true emotions.” Neurolinguists adopt their choice of words to the representational system of the client, and they have found that it has been a boon to establishing client trust and
to creating a verbal shorthand between psychologist and patient. Any feeling that can be expressed visually can be expressed kinesthetically or auditorily as well, so the psychologist merely comes to the patient rather than having the patient come to the psychologist—it helps eliminate language itself as a barrier to communication.

  When grappling with finding the answer to a question, most people use one of the three dominant senses to seek the solution. If you ask people what their home phone number was when they were twelve years old, three different people might use the three different dominant senses of vision, hearing, and feeling. One might try to picture an image of the phone dial; one might try to remember the sound of the seven digits, as learned by rote as a small child; and the last may try to recall the feeling of dialing that phone number. Notice that all three people were trying to remember an image, sound, or feeling from the past. But some thoughts involve creating new images, sounds, or feelings. Neurolinguists found they could determine both the operative representational system of their clients and whether they were constructing new images or remembering old ones before the clients even opened their mouths—by observing their eye movements.

  These eye movements have now been codified. There are seven basic types of eye movements, each of which corresponds to the use of a particular sensory apparatus. Please note that these “visual accessing cues” are for the average righthanded person; left-handers' eyes ordinarily move to the opposite side. Also, “left-right” designations indicate the direction from the point of view of the observer.