Ballyhoo (Mar 23, 1956)

Record Details:

Title:
Ballyhoo
Date:
Mar 23, 1956
Volume:
Ballyhoo (Mar 23, 1956) National
Leaf #:
0005
Language:
English
Collection:
Global Cinema, Canada, and Hollywood Studio System
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library, Greig Dymond in memory of David Dymond, Paul Moore and Jessica Whitehead
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:

Ballyhoo

  • Ontario 'B' District Ballyhoo, editor: Dan Krendel (1952-55)
  • Profit Blitz for ‘Fitz’, editor: Dan Krendel (1955)
  • National Ballyhoo, editor: Dan Krendel (1956-57)
  • Time Out for Ticket Talk, editor: Norman Barker (1960-61)

Ballyhoo (1952-61) was published by Famous Players Canadian Corporation as a mimeographed internal sales and theatre managers’ newsletter. Editor, Dan Krendel, had been division manager of the Ontario ‘B’ District since 1942, and initially created Ballyhoo in 1952 to circulate weekly updates for a regional sales contest. Ontario ‘B’ District Ballyhoo continued until 1955 as a tool for sharing and incentivizing new sales techniques and publicity methods as the movie business declined in the face of television and the baby boom.

In Fall 1955, Profit Blitz for ‘Fitz’ was a nationwide sales contest, named for Famous Players’ president J. J. Fitzgibbons, honouring his 25th year as head of the business. Dan Krendel was made National Drive Captain and edited a weekly newsletter for the campaign.

From 1956 until at least 1957, National Ballyhoo was published weekly with Krendel as editor. He continued the style and content developed earlier for his Ontario ‘B’ District, but now extended vastly for a chain-wide coast to coast scale. Ballyhoo’s sharing promotional tools came at a time of contracting box office as television and automobile ownership became prevalent in the mid-1950s.

By 1960 until at least 1961, Time Out for Ticket Talk continued as a mimeographed newsletter, edited by Norman Barker of the head office publicity department. Time Out was compiled on a less ambitious scale than Ballyhoo. Compared to the earlier national compilation of local publicity gimmicks, Time Out often contained only a single memo or reproduced local story, and was often undated and only informally edited.

– Paul Moore, March 2024

Date Added:
April 11, 2024
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ANYTHING GOES I see copy of a letter sent out by Bert Brown to all early playdates on this attraction, in regard to a deal he has consummated with the Lustre-Creme Shampoo people. This is a national tie-up involving newspaper space, counter displays etc, and nothing is left to the imagination. Bert goes to a lot of trouble to make everything painstakingly clear, so let's not have any slip-ups, eh fellows? Study your letter and then simply follow the few detailed instructions. Not too much to ask, is it? When you are through with the material please return it to your nearest Paramount exchange, so that we can pass it along to some of our smaller situations which will be playing this picture some time after you are through with it. Let's co-operate for the benefit of our circuit, huh? oXeXeXeXe BOOK TICKETS I have a note from Dick Geering advising that we now have a book containing 4 $1.00 tickets, to sell at $3.75 per book, This is to supplement the book which contains 3 tickets at $2.75. Theatres with a $1.00 admission price policy have already been directly advised ... but this is worthy of note for those theatres which make the occasional sale of books of $1.00 unit denomination, These new books can be obtained from our ticket departments in Vancouver, Winnipeg or Toronto. oXepXeXeoXe AFTER CLOSING TICKETS Some managers still, for some reason or other, don't like to use our special after-close tickets, This subject has been discussed at every one of our regional meetings for as many years as I can remember, and it was decided at our last one that the use of these tickets be mandatory ... and not up to each individual manager on a voluntary basis. Do you thoroughly understand the purpose for which our after-close tickets had been designed? Do you know how to use them, and how to report the sales? You certainly should by this time. Several cases of misuse have come to the attention of our audit department in recent weeks, and as a consequence a special letter of advice and instruction went out to all managers, over Dick Geering's signature under date of March 2nd. Have you received yours? Have you read it? No, I'm not trying to be funny ... You'd be surprised at the number of men who read a communication and then couldn!t tell you what was in it, It's a lot easier to do things the right way fellows, honest. Let!s start with the proper use of our special afterclose tickets ... The rest will follow,