Ballyhoo (May 1957)

Page scan 0007 from Ballyhoo

Record Details:

Title:
Ballyhoo
Date:
May 1957
Volume:
Ballyhoo (May 1957, no date) National
Leaf #:
0007
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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WITH OUR DRUMBEATERS Well fellows ... the response is a little better ... but we're a long way from batting a perfect score, Quite a bit of stuff came in during the past couple of days ,.. too late to make this issue, but it will be reported in full in the next one ... in a couple of weeks! time if there's enough material in by then, Keep in touch, will you? Let us know what you're planning to keep the small fry interested during their school holidays ... and what you're doing week by week to keep the customers comin’. As a matter of interest to your friends across the circuit ... tell us what your own vacation plans are ... and about the big ones that didn't get away. Let's hear from you soon ... and often. Now let's see what's been going on since our last issue. PARAMOUNT MONCTON I have before me as comprehensive a selling job on a short subject as I have ever seen ... from Murray Lynch who concentrated on every conceivable angle to sell CHASING THE SUN. Murray contacted the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce, and it's surprising at the terrific co-operation he received. Everything he asked for ... Tourist Bureau material, hotel menus, postcards,etc. He even had the mayor of Miami Beach send the mayor of Moncton a crate of oranges ... which came in for some dandy publicity in the papers and on the air. Good three column pic in the paper, with good pic and theatre credits. Not satisfied with promoting the orange deal ... Murray even arranged to present his mayor with the keys to Miami Beach ,... more pics and stories. A friend of Murray's who writes a popular column in the Moncton Transcript devoted his entire column to CHASING THE SUN ... a well-written, snappy piece that must have sold tickets. Thousands of serviettes and supermarket shopping bags were rubber-stamped with the title of the picture, theatre and playdates. An excellent display of summer luggage in the front window of the largest department store in Moncton ... with attractive display selling picture. Several thousands af inexpensive heralds were distributed throughout the city by the newsboys. Murray arranged with the Public Relations manager of the fabulous Fontainbleau Hotel in Miami Beach to send him several hundreds of Kodachrome postcards ... he addressed them, wrote his message on the back and returned them to Miami for mailing. The recipients got quite a kick out of it, The Weekend Magazine of the Transcript ran a headline across the front page ... "Florida is Brought to Moncton" ... and backed it up with an excellent story dealing with CHASING THE SUN. In the same issue, on another page, another of the popular local columnists devoted his entire column to boocting the pic. A full-page of co-op ads, with each individual ad containing some reference to the title also helped sell plenty of tickets.