1938 Snow White American Campaign Book

Celebrate “Snow White” with a new high in showmanship

Stunt: Snow White goes shopping

As a combined ballyhoo and merchandising stunt, send out a beautiful girl, clad in Snow White’s simple garb, who is to tour the shops mounted on a white horse led by a ballyman attired like the Prince. Your Snow White should make the rounds of several smart shops and department stores, restaurants, night clubs and other public places. The tour should be publicized and advertised, and the stores should make window displays stating the time of Snow White’s arrival at their establishments. Title and theatre banners should flank the horse’s sides for show ballyhoo purposes.

Tell the story along main street

Requiring the co-operation of merchants whose stores are located along the main thoroughfare of your town, the following stunt will sell both their wares and your show. Below find the numbers of 14 stills from “Snow White”. In proper sequence, these photographs tell the story of the picture. Spot them in consecutive order in the windows of your co-operating merchants. The stills should be enlarged, accompanied by terse, brief captions displayed in large, black-face type or decorative hand-lettered cards. To bring the stunt to the public’s attention, advertise it in a co-operative newspaper ad. Also, point out to the merchants that the public will necessarily view their merchandise when they follow the story in stills of “Snow White”. Following are the numbers in the right order. Note that the letter following each number indicates the set in which the still is to be found. For the captions, consult page nineteen;

• SN 17-“B”;
• SWH 11-“A”;
• SWH 18-“A”;
• SWH 32-“B”;
• SWH 34-“A”;
• SWH 44-“A”;
• SWH 65-“B”;
• SWH 79-“A”;
• SWH 83-“A”;
• SN 1-“A”;
• SWH 104-“A”;
• SWH 106-“B”;
• SWH 111-“A”;
• SN 13-“B”.

Furniture store

Children’s furniture could be easily fashioned into house furnishings suitable for the dwarf’s house and installed in a furniture store window for a grand display. Beds, chairs, tables, and cupboards are suitable. The various beds and tables should be labeled with the different names of the dwarfs, and models of the dwarfs should be spotted in the window. Remember to include theatre playdate cards in the display.

Drawing contest

On a week-end morning before your opening day, conduct a “Snow White” drawing competition at your theatre. A full-colored enlargement of a scene from the picture should be set up, well illuminated, so that the audience may see it clearly. The contestants are to copy the scene in a specified time. The best drawings are entitled to prizes, such as a scholarship at an art school, guest tickets and art supplies. Limit your entrants to a ‘teen age to discourage professionals. If you find that you have too many contestants, hold your contest on as many different occasions as possible. Inasmuch as the major portion of your contestants are of school age, it is necessary to provide a time when they are free. Seek school co-operation, submit entry blanks through the school, and get local art authorities to act as judges. Here’s a stunt which could be built into tremendous proportions.

Pet Matinee

Emphasize the appealing animal angle of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by having a morning matinee for children, with admission free for those who bring along live pets with them (dogs and cats barred). Awards may be made for the most interesting pets.

Appreciation cards

Have members of your first days’ showing fill out appreciation cards. Mount the best of them for a board display in your lobby during the remainder of the engagement. Excerpts may also be used to advantage in your newspaper advertisements.

Teaser advertisement

Use as a teaser advance ad, or as a block poster, copy along the following line: “Weather forecast. Cleveland will be Snow White. March 12 – 19 (Theatre playdates).

Shadowbox series

Six of the hand-colored photographs, representing a brief synopsis of the story, each set in the rear of an illuminated shadowbox, the outside of which bears an explanation of the stunt, will form an arresting display in the window of some well-known store.

Lobby circus

Birds and animals have an unfailing appeal to the human being. Considering that they play such an important role in “Snow White”, try to procure from the local pet shop a variety of birds and animals for a lobby show. Chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels, weasels and monkeys, and birds of many descriptions are logical items for such a display. Figure of the seven dwarfs should be arranged about the circus. The entire display should be tagged: “Friends of Snow White”.

Posters

High school and university art students may compete for a special Walt Disney prize to be awarded by you for best “Snow White” poster. Local art authorities should act as judges. Arrange for a display of the competing posters.

Miniature float

In keeping with the liliputian aspects of the seven dwarfs, prepare a miniature float on “Snow White” to parade through the town for days before the opening. The float should consist of an Austin automobile, or similar small car, towing a flat trailer truck displaying a tableau scene from the picture by a ballygirl Snow White and seven figures of the dwarfs. The trailer should be lavishly decorated and possibly bear a phonograph to play and amplify the music from “Snow White” and recorded announcements about your opening.

Ballyhoo: goofy motorcade

A parade of aged automobiles still in running order decorated with the dwarfs a la the college boys’ art on their campus cars will attract a load of attention for “Snow White”. The card should be bannered with title and theatre name. The parade could be conducted as a safety campaign for motorists and pedestrians.

Lobby paste-ups

Capitalize the splendid “Snow White” art in “Good Housekeeping”, “Life”, “Town and Country”, “Look”, “Stage”, “Photoplay” and a dozen other periodicals by pasting up a three-sheet montage of their pages in a lobby display board. A variant of this stunt is to display each periodical bearing a “break” for “Snow White” on individual 11” x 14” boards. This display of quantity will prove impressive to the patrons and transients. Each board should be labeled with your playdates and possibly decorated with dwarf figures.

Hot news heralds

Station a small printing press with a qualified operator in the lobby, an outdoor booth or on a traveling truck. The display should advertise: “Hot news! Just off the press!” Each curious transient inquiring about the “hot news” receives a herald just imprinted with your theatre copy. Perhaps you can tie up with a printer by permitting him to place his advertising copy on the herald.

Touring 24-sheet

Here’s an attention-getter which will make ‘em stop and look! Mount a twenty-four sheet on compo board in eight equal, upright section. Each section should be toted by a ballyman. The eight ballymen should tour the town showing their respective sections. At a given signal, they should assemble in proper sequence revealing an orderly twenty-four sheet. The backs of the individual sections should be equipped with slats as handles for the ballymen.

Girls “paint” 24-sheet

If you display a twenty-four sheet on a board visible to a good deal of transient pedestrian traffic. It would be well worth your while to try this scheme. After the poster is mounted, coat the surface with a thin solution of oil. Allow the oil to dry, and then coat the oil surface with powdered chalk, temporarily opaquing the poster. The next step is to have a number of good-looking girls “paint” the twenty-four sheet. The girls use clean brushes sparingly dipped in water. Wielding their brushes on the powdered chalk surface, they will remove the substance, gradually revealing the poster. The paper of the poster is kept from soaking by the protective all coating previously applied. The stunt can be repeated as often as you wish: however, only one coat of all will be necessary.

Elect a Princess Snow White for a day

Tie in a garage, department store, newspaper various shops, a leading hotel and a smart restaurant for a show-selling stunt to select as Princess Snow White a local girl, who should be regally treated for the day of your opening, and then appear as guest of honor at the premier of the picture. The title of Princess Snow White should be conferred o that girl whose figure best fits a complete outfit contributed by a department store, consisting of hat, shoes, coat, dress, accessories and undergarments. The award should be based on the figure measurements and proportions previously submitted by contestants to the newspaper, and should be judged by the best symmetrical combination of measurements. Princess Snow White should receive her outfit at the department store on the morning of your opening day. Then she is to be put at a leading hotel, from which she is to start an extended shopping tour of your co-operating shops in a chauffeured limousine placed at her disposal by the garage. In the evening, she is to visit the restaurant for a lavish feast, from which she proceeds to the theatre for a grand entrance and introduction to the premiere audience. Princess Snow White for a day should mean gobs of newspaper space and word-of-mouth comment for your show!

Soap culture

Hold a competition for the best models of our heroine and the dwarfs fashioned from soap. The contest should be restricted to boys and girls of school ages, possibly conducting a competition for grammar school students and another for secondary school students. Get educational and artistic co-operation.

Dwarfs as ballyhoos

Dwarfs can be profitably used to make the town dwarf-conscious, similar to RKO’s New York campaign on “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Employ one or more dwarfs to act as messenger for the theatre for a week or ten days before your opening. He should deliver special invitations to the mayor, town officials, newspaper editors and prominent business executives. He should distribute heralds to passers-by in busy districts throughout the town. He should make letter and light package deliveries for the theatre.

Public as press agents

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is definitely a milestone in screen entertainment and, as such, offers the intriguing stunt wherein the exhibitor asks the public to act as his press agents, in newspaper advertisements and screen trailers, the exhibitor or theatre press agent should say that, because of the important aspects of “Snow White” as an entertainment, he desires ideas for unusual advertising and ballyhoo. Guest tickets should be offered for the best suggestions. If you inaugurate this plan well in advance of your opening, you may be able to employ some of the public’s exploitation suggestions. This stunt should create an intimate feeling between the theatre and public, piling up a load of good will as well as A-1 publicity for “Snow White”.

Front: animated character parade

Cut-outs of the seven dwarfs, our little heroine and the other characters and animals should be mounted on a moving belt set on a long oval-shaped platform suspended from below the marquee or above the entrance doors. The belt should be kept continuously moving around the platform while different colored lights flash on and off against the display to increase the attraction. Use the cut-outs as large as possible. This stunt is also feasible for the marquee top on which the cut-outs would be arranged on a belt following the outline of the marquee.

Model contest

Make the illustration of the dwarf’s house at the right the basis of a model contest for a high school boys and girls. Contestants should work in clay, wood or soap, and the contest should be conducted with school and newspaper co-operation.

“If you miss ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’, you’ll be missing the ten best pictures of 1938.” – Frank S. Nugent, New Yok Times.

Lobby: dwarfs’ house in lobby

In a prominent corner of your lobby erect the dwarfs’ forest village insofar as possible. For their house, use a mammoth doll house removing the side to expose the interior, if you wish. The house should be well illuminated. The bedroom should contain seven beds, each properly labeled with the owner’s name. The dining room should feature seven chairs around a table similarly labeled. Dolls of the dwarfs and Snow White should be seated, or set about the house engaged in some activity. The toy store will undoubtedly yield many of the items required for this unusual display.

Street: Snow model contest

If snow falls, in your town in healthy doses during or shortly before your engagement of “Snow White”, herewith are likely stunts which are easily worked show-sellers. Using a flit-gun and water color, letter the title on a fairly hardened snow bank. Try to hang your banners on snow plows and other snow-removing equipment in use during and after a snow fall. Title flags stuck into snow drifts and banks will also attract attention. Hold a competition among the adults and youngsters for the best snow models of Snow White and the dwarfs. The theatre is to send around a roving group of judges.

Bird banquet

Tie up with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or similar organizations, for a “Snow White” banquet for animals in the city pound or for birds in the public parks. Set up bins in the parks containing bird feed; each bin should be suitably placarded.

Classified page

For a classified page newspaper contest, scatter the names of the seven dwarfs through the page, the contestants to find them and paste up the ads on a sheet with a twenty-word appreciation of the newspaper’s want ad service.

The tie-in with the Mickey Mouse cartoon strip

If a local newspaper is featuring the Mickey Mouse cartoon strip, try to plant your theatre announcement on “Snow White” above the cartoon strip about six days before the opening. The theatre copy should point out that Walt Disney is responsible for both the strip and the screen feature.