Boxoffice-December.17.1955

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FIRST BLESSED EVENT OF YEAR CAN BE
TRIPLE DIVIDEND THEATRE PROMOTION
Each New Year's season brings a theatre
manager a fresh opportunity to capitalize
on one of the oldest but most effective
promotions in show business—the First
Baby of the Year contest. It is a tripledividends
promotion, regardless of how
may have been featured in
many years it
your community. A Fu'st Baby of the Year
contest reaps goodwill, gains much free publicity
for the theatre and additional patronage
for the contest award night.
Although a First Baby of the Year stunt
can stand on its own feet as a sound promotion
plan, it gains much added value
when it can be combined with a timely
angle or with a special picture booking.
Dave Dallas, manager of the Mid-Central
theatres at Manhattan, Kas., put over an
excellent example of a timely tieup for
the 1955 First Baby stunt. Although Manhattan's
official centennial celebration of
the city's founding was not due until last
spring, Dave decided to tie his 1955 First
Baby contest with the event. He announced
that the winner would get the title of "Mr.
or Miss Centennial," and that the three
Mid-Central theatres in Manhattan, the
Campus, Coed and State, would award a
silver loving cup to the title winner.
Dave also got the cooperation of the
Manhattan Ti-ibune-News and 24 local
merchants in setting up prize merchandise
and promoting the event with news stories
in the Tribune-News, along with double
page spreads of co-op advertising by all
sponsors. Five prize classifications were set
up. First prize—to the first baby born in
1955 between midnight, December 31, and
12 noon, January 4; second prize—to second
baby born in this period; third prize—to
twins or larger multiple births, or baby
of opposite sex born in contest: fourth prize
—to the heaviest baby at birth, and fifth
prize—to the lightest baby at birth.
Prizes
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ranged from the theatres' loving cup for the
winner to specific gifts for each prize winning
baby and the parents of each prize
winner.
Dallas got his extra patronage when representatives
of all the prize winners were
spotlighted in a big Campus stage show,
two nights after the contest closed, to bear
off the loving cup and merchandise awards.
John W. Godfroy, manager of the Paramount
at Ashland, Ky., demonstrated another
way to add sparkle to the First Baby
of the Year stunt. His picture scheduled
for New Year season showing was Judy
Garland in "A Star Is Born." Two weeks
before this feature was to open at the
Paramount, Godfroy tied in with the local
newspaper's First Baby of the Year awards.
Godfroy arranged to have a cut of Judy
Garland saying: "Who knows—perhaps a
new star is born?" featured on the full
page of cooperative dealer ads. Following
this, a telegram sent from Warner Bros,
with Judy Garland's signature, wished the
baby the best of everything and said that
perhaps a new star had been born. A twocolumn
newspaper story mentioned the
wire, credited Miss Garland with the 100
orchids given out to the first 100 women
attending the opening and played up the
angle that it looked as if the star had
adopted Ashland as her second hometown.
The Ambridge Theatre, Ambridge, Pa.,
also tied "A Star Is Born" with the 1955
First Baby contest in its town. The theatre
and the Ambridge Daily Citizen co-sponsored
the contest, aided by 16 local merchants
who gave prizes and shared the
cost of two full page ads, one on December
31 preceding the contest, and the second
on January 4, announcing the winner
both page ads plugging the fact that "A
Star Is Born" currently was showing at
the theatre.
Whether you can work up a timely angle
with a local event or a tieup with a picture
you have booked for New Year's, you can
be confident that a 1956 First Baby contest
will stand on its own proven appeals as a
sound promotion stunt.
Photos on Theatre Front
Net Passes for Patrons
Photographs of local citizens posted on
the front of the Bluebird Theatre, Petersburg,
Va., brought passersby scurrying to
look for theu' own pictures, according to
Manager James B. Myers jr.
Myers had his projectionist, who is a
camera hobbyist, take 44 pictures of people
walking along the street near the theatre.
He developed the photographs and posted
them on a 40x60 cardboard on the front
of the theatre, with copy reading: "Look, if
your picture appears in this frame, report
it to the manager and pick up your guest
ticket, plus photo, and see Joel McCrea as
Wyatt Earp in 'Wichita' in CinemaScope
and Technicolor, etc." In addition, a line
was run in the newspaper advertising plugging
the photo display.
At times there were as many as 10 or 15
persons standing hi front of the theatre
looking at the photographs. Main idea of
the promotion, Myers said, was to get people
to look at all of the advertising in the
other frames, too. Cost was very small, he
added, and the
promotion paid off.
— 378 —
He's Near LA Bui That
Is No Alibi for Letup
In Showmanship
Here's the display of diving equipment used as
part of the foyer and lobby dress-up for "Mister
Roberts" at the Alcazar in Bell, Calif. Manager
Robert HI. Osmond also had an array of
1,000,000 knots tied by one sailor among Navy
materials on hand.
Although playing four or five weeks after
first run in nearby Los Angeles, Manager
Robert H. Osmond of the Alcazar in Bell,
Calif., does his best to beat the drum in
his own neighborhood when the product
does come his way.
When "Mister Roberts" was booked into
the Alcazar recently, though it had received
better-than-average exploitation treatment
all over Los Angeles, Osmond arranged an
intense campaign for the film.
Banking heavily on Navy material, he
arranged to have a portable recruiting station
set up in front of the theatre one week
in advance, with two chief petty officers
and a non-com in charge.
Inside, a staggering display of 1,000,000
knots tied by one sailor kicked up a whale
of a lot of interest, but this was only part
of the display the manager arranged. Free
Navy literature was placed on a table, set
against a backdrop of a huge wall picture
of a convoy moving through the high seas
and Navy planes flying overhead. Another
display in the outer foyer showed diving
gear and equipment.
Also moved to the front of the theatre
was a trailer from a Navy ammunition
depot showing a NIKE and other weapons,
shells and ammunition. In nearby store
windows, Osmond set up miniature aircraft
carriers and battle wagons, which remained
on display throughout the run.
The manager also obtained almost seven
column inches of space in the local newspaper.
This was achieved through the
medium of a find-your-name-and-win-apass
contest conducted by the Alcazar in
the pages of the paper.
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BOXOFFICE Showmandiser
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Dec. 17, 1955 I