Movie Ticket Prices Are Going Up ... A Lot

A Dummy's Puppet's Ramblings - from Chip Martin, Puppet (Mannequin American views and guidelines on marketing/PR trends plus bits of humor and interesting but useless information.)

Thanking Members of Our Military
Have you ever seen one of our military walking past you and wanted to convey to them your thanks, but weren't sure how? Take a moment to watch "The Gratitude Campaign," and then forward it to your friends! Click on: http://www.gratitudecampaign.org/shortmovie.php 

Charitable eBay Auctions Forced to be Pulled

Some use eBay for evil, like selling one's wife. But one charitable and well-intentioned soul finds himself battling two great forces at once: cancer and DC Comics.

Superman fan Thomas Denton, blogger and charitable eBayer, was so grateful for the help his family received from Candlelighters during his young nephew's bout with cancer, that he enlisted a team of comic artists willing to donate their artwork, some of which featured depictions of Superman. Denton set up auctions via eBay's charitable auction channel to sell the artwork, all proceeds, minus eBay's fees, to be forwarded to Candlelighters.

But all was not well. A team of WB lawyers (WB owns DC Comics) crashed through the skylight and forced eBay to pull the auctions, citing copyright and trademark violations.  Denton acknowledged his mistake. Despite being "heartbroken," he refused to play the victim and instead asked that concerned citizens simply make donations to Candlelighters.

DC wasn't completely devoid of sympathy and "made an exemption" for one of the listed items-you know, just to show they're not complete jerks. Denton will still have to foot the fees for the auctions that were not reinstated.

Go, "Speed Racer," go! Please? Please, go?  
  

Sadly, no amount of coaxing could fire up Warner Bros.' blockbuster gone bust.  

"Speed Racer" was meant to be one of the summer's brightest vehicles and was to have been another perfect marketing venue for some big players including McDonald's, Target, General Mills, Lego, Yokohama Tires, Esurance and Puma - which all paid to tie promotions to the movie.

But "Racer" crashed badly, right out of the gate. A week after its opening weekend, the $120 million film had barely crossed $21 million in domestic grosses.

Before it hit the screen the film generated about $80 million in promotional partnerships. But luckily it had few discernible product-placement deals. Instead, most of the marketing partners had promotions leading up to the movie. So despite being a box-office disaster, "Racer" was actually quite lucky on that front, because companies that had deals tied to product placements will probably be asking for some money back.

Ethanol and Rising Costs of Paper Will Mean 30% Rise in Movie Ticket Prices ... Why? Because of Popcorn, of Course
Speaking of movies, thanks to the inflating cost of popcorn, the price of movie tickets is expected to skyrocket by as much as 30% this year. Movie goers can expect to see a one- to two-dollar increase in the price of a movie ticket, according to industry experts. 

Here's why.

Roughly 25% of the price of a movie ticket is subsidized by popcorn, soda and candy sales. And, according to an Agriculture Department report, next year's corn stocks are expected to plunge to a 13-year low and, as a result, corn-futures contracts have soared to an all-time high. This can be attributed to the demand for ethanol, which will claim 40% of next year's corn crop, munching away at the margins of theaters that rely on concession sales for as much as 45% of their revenue. Plus, in the past 18 months, the cost of coconut oil used for popping corn has risen 24%. And the price of the paper pulp to produce popcorn tubs has jumped 40% in the past 36 months, making the tub more expensive than the corn inside it. 

Ticket sales had been insulated for the past 30 years from both inflation and recession. (Adjusted for inflation, tickets today cost less than they did in 1977, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.)
 
In an interview with Mike Campbell, CEO of Regal Entertainment, the nation's largest theater chain, said, "If we didn't charge as much for concessions as we do, the tickets to the movies would cost $20." (According to the MPAA, last year's average movie-ticket price was $6.88.)

WI Speed Trap Worth Noting

Last year, the Fond du Lac County village of Rosendale, WI, population 923, issued 1,581 speeding tickets. That's almost four times that of the city of Fond du Lac's total of 404 tickets.  Rosendale collected a total of $72,036 from all citations issued last year.

Not surprisingly, the village is marked as a speed trap on multiple web sites and a comment about Rosendale at http://www.speedtrap.org/, talks about an unfair speeding ticket written as far back as 1958.

So many tickets are given out that it's benefiting other businesses in the community.  For instance, motorists who stop in at Bluemke's, Westphal's gas station and convenience store located at the intersection of Highways 23 and 26 in the heart of the community, can purchase T-shirts that read: "Rosendale - Just the Ticket." Displayed on the shirt is a squad car.

A word to the wise ... don't believe the mayor, city attorney or police chief who claim tickets are only given to motorists who exceed the speed limit by more than 10 mph. The number of documented tickets given for just 5 mph over makes this town worth a wide berth.

If you'd like to read both sides of the story, including motorists who feel victimized by the town's "enforcement" of speed laws, click here.

Thank You
A short "thank you," to all of you who took the time to send congratulatory emails to Dale or me, following my post about Lauren Brown's college graduation. Dale and I were slightly stunned by the quantity of emails we received. More importantly, many of you took advantage of the opportunity to take shots at Dale. I really enjoyed that. The most common type of remark was "Who is Lauren's real dad? She's too good looking to be Dale's daughter and the fact that she graduated Cum Laude completely rules out the possibility of any of his DNA."