Showmen's Trade Review (Jul-Sep 1945)

August 18, 1945 SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW 13 Contests, Music Sell 'Thrill Of A l\omance Through the complete cooperation of the exclusive Victor Record distributor in Harrisburg, Harold A. Gangloff, relief manager of Loew's in that city, with the aid of Ed Gallner, MGM exploiteer, concentrated attention on publicizing "Thrill of a Romance" by setting up window displays, advertising matter and a contest in ten of the city's leading record stores. War bonds, Lauritz Melchior record albums and guest tickets were prizes. Another contest over a local radio station, featuring Lauritz Melchior and Tommy Dorsey records, offered war stamps prizes to the first several listeners calling in the correct titles of the musical numbers played. Another radio gag consisted of the station announcing in advance that at a certain time it would announce the names of persons picked at random from the telephone directory and that the persons named would received guest tickets to see "Thrill of a Romance," if they were at home when the announcements were made. Bowman's department store in Harrisburg tied-up with the picture by buying a large ad in the Harrisburg News announcing "Swoony Coolers For The Van Johnson Crowd," an appeal to the teen-agers, and also announced that they would give away colored photos of Van Johnson to teen -agers on a first-come-firstserved basis. Other highlights of the extensive campaign were 7000 pin-up folders of Esther Williams distributed through beauty parlors, barber shops, restaurants, drug stores, etc., and 5000 heralds depicting the various bathing suit costumes worn by Miss Williams and showing various "thrill" scenes from the picture. Railway express trucks, radio spot announcements, cards in hotel lobbies, restaurants and stores also were used. Beats Loss of Newspaper Coverage: Plugs 'Clock' To circumvent the loss of White Plains circulation of New York newspapers, caused by the newspaper handlers' strike. Manager Mike Stranger, Loew's State, White Plains, printed 5000 notices plugging "The Clock" and had them distributed by 12 bathing beauties, placed under the clock at the Playland boardwalk, causing no little commotion. In addition, 200 complete show starting time schedules were posted at all information centers including the stores of downtown merchants. Several windows and 24-sheet and 6-sheet snipes plugged the attraction in advance, including one display at an important bus stop. COVERED WAGON HAS RUBBER TIRES! This novel and colorful street ballyhoo was used in Minneapolis to plug International's "Along Came Jones" at the RKO Orpheum Theatre. Burros and wagon riders in western attire attracted plenty of attention. Riders are a few of the twenty members of a local riding club enlisted by Manager Bob Sears to manage the balky burros and cooperate otherwise in ballyhooing the RKO release. Citywide Promotion In Cleveland on ^Blood^ Manager Howard Burkhardt teamed with E. J. Fisher at Loew's State Theatre, Cleveland, in exploiting William Cagney's "Blood on the Sun," United Artists release, with a citywide promotion which included truck banners, tack cards, radio contest and spot announcements, and a widespread newspaper campaign. Prizes of war bonds and free theatre tickets were offered in a radio contest over WHK's "On the Record" program. The program was aired day before opening. WHK and WJW used spot announcements for three days preceding the engagement and running through opening day. All Royal Crown Cola trucks used banners in advance of the opening. Banners were also placed on Klein News Magazine trucks. Additional coverage was obtained through use of stickers on the Checker Bar Ice Cream vendors' boxes. Commissary trucks of Thompson Products also carried cards plugging the picture. In a special lobby tieup, Burkhardt arranged for the display on the Minneapolis Honeywell's Norden bombsight and other optical instruments at Loew's State which got the film favorable publicity. Two hundred and fifty window and 1000 tack cards were distributed throughout the city. The newspaper campaign consisted of the maximum 600 lines in each of the city's dailies. Higbee's Department Store used the national slogan which was worked up in cooperation with the Treasury Department : "There will be 'Blood on the Sun' in Tokyo if you buy a War Bond in Cleveland today." Special Sunday art broke in the Qeveland Plain Dealer in advance of the opening and the Cleveland News carried art on the following day. CADET NURSES TAKE OVER. Highlighting his campaign for Andrew Stone's United Artists release, "Bedside Manner," when the picture played the Warner Theatre, Memphis, was a mammoth parade to his theatre staged by Manager Joe Simon in cooperation with the local unit of the Cadet Nurse Corps from the city's five major hospitals. Gals looked nice and the newspapers came through with ample space. Features Pigtail Contest For 'St. Louis' at Enright Directing his exploitation attention toward the younger element for his campaign on "Meet Me in St. Louis," Lige Brien, manager of the Enright Theatre, Pittsburgh, highlighted the campaign with a Pigtail Contest and gave away 3000 comic books in which details of the contest and other pertinent information were included. The Pigtail Contest was promoted primarily v\3, radio during the theatre's regularly scheduled Kiddie Broadcast, starting three weeks in advance of the picture's opening. As a visual background for the broadcast studio audiences, Brien constructed three enormous kids' heads as a hanging display with pigtails attached to the heads. A large six-foot sign below the heads plugged the contest and the picture. Prizes were awarded for the longest, funniest, reddest, blondest and blackest pigtails. More than 400 youngsters entered the contest. In the giveaway comic books eight coming attractions were listed in addition to primary plugs for "Meet Me in St. Louis." Fifty book jackets for the picture were secured and distributed to as many high school youngsters who pledged to keep the jackets prominently displayed during three weeks before the picture opened in return for a pair of guest tickets to each kid. Another kid promotion was arranged when Brien booked the last chapter of a current serial with the first chapter of a new one on the opening day of "Meet Me in St. Louis." Juke box signs were placed on every available instrument, plugging music from the picture five days in advance of opening. Eight full window displays, one kept alive for 10 days, nearly 3000 story book giveaways, a street ballyhoo, MGM Screen forecasts, with theatre and date imprints, a candy stand tieup, window cards, outdoor posting, advertising and newspaper publicity and a spectacular lobby overhead display were additional features of the extensive and highly successful campaign.