Yearbook of radio and television (1964)

Rural Listeners a Potential For National Ad Campaigns NATIONAL advertisers, as modern marketing intensifies, are departing more and more from the rigid type of marketing in the top markets exclusively. In the past, many of these national companies have confined their intensive sales efforts to the ''top 25" or the top TOO markets, thereby bypassing vast areas of the U. S. In today's hard-selling and highly competitive situations, branch managers and advertising executives of nationally distributed products, involving broad scope services, know that they need to reach into all markets where their products are available. They also know that they must expose their sales messages to audiences beyond the restrictive reach of the top markets only, if they are to obtain maximum sales results on a national basis. To implement this highly desirable goal, this means the utilization of radio in the 2,749 C & D Counties that comprise, both in terms of population and consumer power, well over one-third of the entire country. The essential coverage of these sales areas is precisely what our network is equipped to supply. KBS, with its 1 180 affiliated stations, covers 40 percent of the population of the U. S. The main strength of our operation, however, lies in the C & D Counties where 19,099,490 out of a total of 51,155,100 radio homes in the U. S. are located. We serve on the "local level at the point of sale" 2,367 or 86 percent of all C & D Counties. Keystone is an ideal means of tapping these profitable sales reservoirs, for the high incidence of listenership loyalty to the local rural and small town radio station has been established by numerous surveys, and also by the empirical experiences of advertisers themselves. More and more, national adver By SIDNEY J. WOLF President Keystone Broadcasting System, Inc. tisers are realizing the efficacy of radio in the C & D Counties. Take one striking example. Three and a half years ago, a leading national advertiser, the Rexall Drug Company, decided to buy KBS for a series of radio campaigns. Although we were severely restricted as to what areas we were permitted to service, we started off with 200 markets and, as of this writing, are scheduling regular campaigns on over 500 stations, hopeful of adding additional markets. How did this national advertiser satisfy himself that we were doing an outstanding sales job for his company? With each campaign sponsored by the parent company, its distributors were invited to buy additional "tiein" spots from our local outlets, for the duration of the campaign. The response was phenomenal. Not only were the distributors prepared to match the parent company's advertising dollars, expended on the local level, but also to outmatch them three to one. Thousands of additional "tiein" spots are regularly reported by Keystone affiliates scheduling the parent company's sales campaigns. What greater proof of the effectiveness of local radio can there be than the eagerness of local distributors to support the parent company's promotion on their local stations? They are on the spot; they know their own markets; they are paying for the additional "tie-in" spots out of their own pockets, and the local rates are comparable to those paid by the parent company for the national campaign. Isn't this surely the most reliable yardstick of local performance a national advertiser can have? 100