Exhibitors’ Campaign Books

Exhibitors’ Campaign Books have been around as long as there have been movies, and feature an eclectic mix of elements helping to promote a film. Mainly supplied to cinema managers (but sometimes also the national and local press) these publications in their standardised format e.g. for films released by United Artists in the Sixties, like the Bond series, would usually contain 12 pages, although the page count and page size of other film distributors’ campaign books could differ. The Bond campaign books were mostly laid out in a portrait format, although this style was broken with Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), until returning to the portrait format again with Diamonds Are Forever (1971). In the United States these publications were called Pressbooks and were completely different in content to their UK counterpart. Pressbooks were also produced for other territories around the world, but these, although interesting, were seldom as lavish in production as their UK and US counterparts.

All the James Bond films from Dr. No (1962) to Licence To Kill (1989) had Exhibitors’ Campaign Books produced to accompany the release of each film. By the time Agent 007 returned to UK cinema screens after a six-year hiatus in 1995 with GoldenEye, the Exhibitors’ Campaign Book had been discontinued, replaced by Spirex-bound marketing manuals and electronic press kits on VHS videocassette, and eventually CD-Rom, and DVD, but were discontinued after The World is Not Enough (1999). Die Another Day (2002) had its Press Kit issued as a CD-ROM with printed production notes. A printed full-colour landscape format Marketing Guide was produced for Casino Royale (2006).

Not surprisingly, in the collectors’ world these publications have become highly sought-after and can be an expensive addition to a Bond enthusiast’s collection