Ballyhoo (May 4, 1956)

Page scan 00016 from Ballyhoo

Record Details:

Title:
Ballyhoo
Date:
May 4, 1956
Volume:
Ballyhoo (May 4, 1956) National
Leaf #:
00016
Language:
English
Collection:
Canada, Global Cinema, 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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CAPITOL VANCOUVER Maynard Joiner sends along some terrific material covering Charlie Doctor's activities on behalf of CAROUSEL. Don't know why Charlie can't send’it in himself ... however, it's here, so let's take a look at it, Charlie really did it up brown, He started the ball rolling well in advance with terrific radio and T.V. coverage’... and took advantage of the free T.V. clip service from New York, KV0OS -TV gave this excellent coverage, free, Two record distributors climbed on the band wagon ... Decca and Capitol’.,. and between them promoted 23 good music store windows in the area, Capitol also tied in with their Hi-Fi demonstration, and used a theatre lobby hook-up for a Continuous playing of the CAROUSEL long-play record, with frequent pic and theatre announcement breaks, One of the most successful promotions in some time was the one Charlie arranged with the Snow's Clam Chowder people, All I have to go by is a copy of Charlie's weekly manager's letter, so I may be a little out in my facts, but this is what it looks like to me, The Snow's people appropriated $4,000,00 to toss into this promotion, An excellent display of their products was set up in the theatre lobby, with servings of the chowder to all who desired it, Paid display space was used in every local paper, and excellent ~ displays in just about every food store in the Vancouver area .e. $750.00 worth of model sailboats, as well as $350,00 worth of theatre tickets were used as prizes ... but Charlie neglects to tell what the prizes were for, How about it Chazz? Snow's advertising agency sent out one of the finest brochures I have ever seen to the executives and publicity directors of their 7&8 wholesale food distributors, This'’was followed up by direct contact by members of their sales force, The trade was then flooded by llx1l4 and 22x28 combination Snow!s and CAROUSEL posters, each stamped with the theatre and playdates, Thousands of special heralds were distributed to all the food Stores in the city, with suggestions for tying into this promotion, Several local chain and department stores used full-page Easter displays, incorporating CAROUSEL art in their layouts ..,. Now to get back to the chowder .,, It seems that the Snow people demonstrated and sampled their product for something like 102 hours in the theatre, and this rated a good sized’ story for the film and theatre on the Women's page of the Province. Several department stores also used the sampling, and in every instance CAROUSEL displays were prominently displayed, $500,00 worth of the model sailboats were provided by the distributors a»d these were used as prizes on one of the most popular radio shows in town. Hundreds of dollars of free publicity for the theatre and the canning company resulted, And just so's we won't forget about the confection revenue Charlie promoted another 25 boats, plus several cases of the chowder which were used as prizes to promote the sale of 20¢ drinks, Some’ é of the cups were stamped with a star ... and they were the winners, A most comprehensive campaign Charlie ... and a swell job of selling,