'Shop Local' campaigns are not just a modern thing! Long before the internet made your computer a virtual department store, the motor car was quite literally driving people away from the local Main Street and into the big cities. Small cinemas often carried ads for local shops and in this Ashhurst example, a slide screened before these ads had a general 'shop local' message.
Who paid for this slide? The local business owners? The cinema manager- who got commission on every cinema advertising slide bought? Or was it a local business association who convinced the cinema manager to make a 'free slide' for the good of the town? We may never know. But we do know that by the 1970s many local cinemas had closed down as a night out became a night out of town. Many Horowhenua towns did not escape this trend.
