Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1943)

ERS and WFIL cooperated on an extensive promotional campaign. Attractive advertisements were placed in metropolitan newspapers. Book marks and colorful posters were distributed to the Public Libraries. Letters to educators and Pan American Consuls were prepared. We received permission from the Pan American Association to circularize its members. Car cards were displaved in the city's transportation facilities and on station platforms. All in all we covered the town thoroughly in creating listener interest for the series. Audience reaction, quite evidently, repaid the effort. No department store program pattern would be complete without entertainment for the children. Lit Brothers is proud of the children's audience it has built up over a period of the past two years. Using the 5:00 to 5:15 spot on WFIL, various transcribed shows ha^ e been used, including Pinocchio and Streamlined Fairy Tales. The promotional tie-in that has been provided with these shows has helped build a loyal listening audience. Instead of having the store commercials handled in the routine fashion, a character called the Magic Lady, who is on the staff of the New Business Department, was created for the purpose of adding a personal touch to the program. In turn, she created the Magic Nexus Club, among the listeners. Members of the club now number approximately 7,000. They receive a monthly newspaper called the Magic Neius. This paper is edited and published by the New Business Department and mailed to each one of the members. The Magic Lady has an office in the store to which members of the Magic Neius Club and their mothers come frequently. On various occasions the Magic Lady has appeared in \ arious Children's Departments of the store and her listen ers ha\e been invited to (ome in and \isii with her. In ilie huest venune of that sort, .S,()()0 kids and motlurs came in to see the Magu Lady in the new C^hildren's Sedion which Li i BRoriiiRs just opened. At the present lime Li i I^koiukrs is sponsoring an original dramali/ed serial written by Ednuuul Dawes. WFIL Fducational Director. Acting is done by children and the entire program is presided over by the Magic Lady. Our coming program designed foi the homemaker audience is slill in the plans stage so I can, as yet, report no results. But I should like to call attention to our solution of the talent controversy which often crops up in department store-radio plans. We do not feel that store talent is essential to the proper delivery of our sales message. While we do use home talent on the Children's program, we have drawn from the listening audience, the open market and the \VFIL staff for the rest of our schedule. Another bogey that turns up with annoying regularity in the question of department store radio affairs, particularly in program production, is the costs problem. The gieatest difficulty in exercising this evil spirit is the lack of specific figures of radio iniit costs versus direct sales results. Lit Brothers feels, however, that for what we ask of radio, in institutional value, store promotion and good ^\'ill. the cost is quite moderate. The crux of the present radio-department store problem appears to me to be a matter of education; education of department stores to the correct use of radio, and edtication of radio stations to the aims of a department store. When department stores realize that radio ad\ertising effectiveness grows in direct proportion to the length of time it is heard, they won't wonder why shortterm campaigns fail to achieve residts. DECEMBER, 1943 405