Ballyhoo (May 4, 1956)

Page scan 00017 from Ballyhoo

Record Details:

Title:
Ballyhoo
Date:
May 4, 1956
Volume:
Ballyhoo (May 4, 1956) National
Leaf #:
00017
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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METROPOLITAN WINNIPEG Nice to hear from Eddie Newman again ... he's been out of these pages for a long .. much too long, time, Eddie advises that for his COURT JESTER date he arranged to screen this pic for the members of the newly formed Students! Film Council,’ who endorsed it on the bulletin boards in their respective schools. It was also screened for the radio, T.V. and newspaper people, and sales personnel from all local music stores, Most of the deejays set up contests to run concurrently with the showing’ of the feature, with records donated by the Decca people as prizes, Needless to say a great deal of free publicity resulted, When he played COCKLESHELL HEROES, Eddie was able, through the cooperation of the local Navy League, to get a 40 foot model of the St. Laurent, which he used for a most effective lobby display well in advance of his opening date, On opening night the league's 50 piece band 4nd four divisions of the Winnipeg Sea Cadets paraded to the theatre, The band performéd on the stage and certainly lent colour to the overall proceedings, In regard to THE SWAN, Eddie passes along the information that while business is good, it is almost entirely female trade ... and mostly matinee at that, He suggests that the advertising approach be slanted at the gals, with some gimmicks tossed in to attract them to the evening performances, You might think about this ... and, do something about it, eX oXeXeXoXo CAPITOL LONDON Murray Summerville, house manager, sends along details of their campaign on CAROUSEL, and it looks good, The basic tie-up was with the Capitol Records, who came through with extellent display material for both the lobby and many local windows, In addition they provided a dozen L.P, records which were used as prizes in a good radio contest, Every deejay on the air plugged the tunes and pic all week, Some of the excellent windows promoted for this date were Heintzman's .,, Simpsons ... and the © F P L display window, I have pics of these windows and they really do a selling job, oXeXeoXeKeXo Well, that looks like it for this issue guys ... Some of you will have to do a lot better than you have been if you want: the right kind of mention in this sheet, To'our steady contributors .,. thanks, and keep your stuff coming, This is YOUR ... and I mean that ,,, YOUR BALLYHOO, It's awfully easy to let the other guy carry the load, but there's a lot more satisfaction in knowing that YOU too helped a little, Right? Well ... see you ‘in a couple of weeks! time, In the meantime ,.. keep BALLYHOOIN',