Sunday 15 September 2013

Promoting Thunderball in Germany

After the great success of Goldfinger in Europe, United Artists launched a larger than life advertising campaign for Thunderball. Here are some examples  from Germany where the film is called "Feuerball" (Fireball):
The equivalent of the pressbook is called "Werberatschlag" (Advertising Advice). It comes with newspaper advertisement suggestions, available 
advertising material like posters and a small teaser poster within the pressbook. 

One difference to the US pressbooks: The press information itself is provided in a separate brochure called "Presseinformation". Which makes sense as the first one is aimed at cinema owner while the second goes to the press.

Cinema owner were heavily incentivised to promote the film: The German equivalent of Variety magazine called "Film Echo / Film Woche" featured Thunderball in 3 differnt editions including a sweepstake to travel to the Bahamas. Especially appealing as Thunderball was released in Germany
in December.



Some nice  examples from a cinema in Hamburg and outdoor advertising below. A special offer were Thunderball standees as shown below. Has anyone ever seen one of these in reality?


Thanks to Thomas from The Nixdorf Collection for the cinema and standee photos.