WHEN THE WALT DISNEY SHOW BUSINESS EMPIRE sets out to do something, it does it big. And in keeping with this there’ll be nothing half-way about the exploitation campaign already under way for the soundtrack album for “Mary Poppins,” film version of the English children’s classic. According to Jimmy Johnson, newly elected president of the Disney music operations (including all labels and the Walt Disney and Wonderland publishing firms), the picture doesn’t open until the end of August, and the track album on the Vista label won't hit the retailers until a few weeks before, but already, one of the most massive album-picture cross promotions in Disney’s (or anybody else’s) history is underway.
THINGS ACTUALLY got under way last fall when Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Ed Wynn, Glynis Johns and David Tomlinson were on location for the film. Look Magazine went on location too and did a feature story.
Earlier this year, 16 key exhibitors who had already booked the picture plus a number of the record wing’s distributors were summoned to Disneyland for promotion conferences. Each was filmed in color with Walt Disney for use in an advance trailer now being shown in appropriate markets all over the country.
Since then, 500 samples of the sound-track disk have been distributed among other record companies (in hopes of obtaining blanket use of the songs on other records), to distributors and to the press.
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