Ballyhoo (Dec 14, 1960)

Page scan 0001 from Ballyhoo

Record Details:

Title:
Ballyhoo
Date:
Dec 14, 1960
Volume:
Time Out for Ticket Talk (Dec 14, 1960)
Leaf #:
0001
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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Charlie Doctor, Capitol theatre, Vancouver "NORTH TO ALASKA" CONFECTION CARNIVAL This was set up as a cornball promotion, as atmosphere for a cornball picture and resulted in a lot of corn being harvested at the box-office and confection bars. Pepsi and Orange Crush donated 150 cartons of bottled drinks as prizes and four boxes of gold coins (bag of gold) chocolates were procured at a very small cost, the latter to give colour to this "NORTH TO ALASKA" promotion and were also used as prizes. Prizes were given out through markings on the 19¢ cup bottoms only. Crush sold two to one over the 10¢ cups and Pepsi four to one. First Friday and Saturday tally was over 1,000 19¢ cups. The same thing was done with the 25¢ corn boxes, and again an all time record for this theatre. Pepsi provided us with a lot of extra display material, background drops, lazy susan and extra fluorescent signs, one of which was over-printed with the words "CONFECTION CARNIVAL." This big sign was set to face the Granville Door, and as our bar is unfortunately parallel, this gave us, for the first time, a stopper that hit the customers right in the eye. Extra spots brilliantly lit the back of the bar displays, illuminating every detail of art shop copy. Main display 15 feet long consisted of a colourful art panel set up with a "BAG OF GOLD" centre. Signs advertising how to win prizes were framed, and the overall display was captioned with: "YOU MAY FIND A BAG OF GOLD AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR 19¢ CUP." A six foot arrow directed at the centre of this display read: "STO™" (in the form of a traffic sign backed with a flashing red light) "ON YOUR WAY -NORTH TO ALASKA -HAVE A PEPSI OR A CRUSH." Large dur: cups with tops