Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

II Voting vignettes Aluminum Co. of America is also using pre-election time on KQV Pittsburgh to deliver a '"your vote counts" message to local radio listeners. The public service series tells how "one vote chanced the course of history in various political crises of the past," through a series of 15-second, 30-second and 60-second "vignettes," as station KQV identifies them. These aren't commercials at all, in fact, for there's no promotion whatsoever for Alcoa products, merely a credit-giving tag line: "Alcoa urges you to support the candidate of your choice. Contribute generously. Vote wisely." The campaign was a KQV radio idea, and the station had the vignettes made up, then offered them to Alcoa. The sponsor in turn was offered a very attractive package: a vignette is being aired once every hour for three pre-election weeks, as of Oct. 12, for a total of 84 each week. Cost of the entire series is a bargain $1000. local buys are on CBS-TV and ABC-TV stations as well. The daytime network buys include Make Room for Daddy, Loretta Young, Jeopardy, Say When, .The Doctors. Word for Word and 'Let's Make a Deal. ! Spot buys were a bit of a problem, according to Roy Wilson, KM&G account executive. "We took the best prime nighttime spots we could get in each market. But the fact that we wanted only 14 weeks, coupled with holiday and pohtical buying, made the schedule difficult to complete," Wilson ex plains. "We had to delay the start of our spot campaign one week because of the Democratic convention," he adds. Local time was bought in the following 19 markets: Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville, H a r tford-New Haven, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, Raleigh-Durham, San Francisco, Washington and Winston-Salem. Although in competition with many kinds of wrapping materials. Alcoa Wrap's greatest challenge is to catch up with Reynolds Wrap. At the moment, Reynolds is offering a 10 cent discount on its product and has also launched a joint promotion with the Cling Peach Advisory Board and Kellogg's Corn Flakes. Together, the three are using Sunday supplements to promote a recipe that combines fried chicken, corn flakes and peaches. Reynolds' tie-in: use foil to keep pan clean. While Alcoa Wrap's new commercials also feature other products and companies, the campaign comes off with a unique twist — endorsement of the Alcoa product by the other companies. As noted, each company in turn gets the chance to promote its own products by including them in suggested recipes: • Betty Crocker proposes making pie crusts into boat forms, filling them with fruits and using Alcoa foil for masts and sails. • General Foods' kitchens suggest individual, decorated servings of Jell-O in custard-cup party dishes covered with Alcoa Wrap. • Armour proposes using Alcoa foil with a special glaze recipe for Armour Golden Star hams. • Swift kitchens recommend an orange -marmalade-glazed Swift Premium butterball turkey, roasted under a tent of the aluminum foil. • Nestle's Choco-Bake liquid chocolate and Alcoa Wrap are combined to make a pie crust that requires no baking and leaves a clean pan. ♦ InBC's Meet the Press, heard in Pittsburgh on station WJAS. Sponsorship is budgeted at $1 120 for 16 half-hour programs. Another regularly sponsored radio program is Alcoa Theatre 14, Iheard on KQV Pittsburgh and bud'geted at some $25,000. More important, however, is that this buy may be a forerunner of radio buys to come, if Alcoa's renewal of the series (it began last year) can be considered a meaningful clue. "Alcoa is pleased to return as the sponsor for this top-quality radio series," says B. B. Randolf, manager of radio and television for the Aluminum Co. of America. November 2, 1964 "When the announcement of the series was made last year," he continues, "we felt the series to be the best in drama that radio can offer. Letters received from listeners — and press reaction — generally indicate to us that there is certainly a place for good drama in today's radio broadcasting industry. We are gratified by this response." Reintroduced in early September of this year, the radio-drama series is presented as an hour feature made up of two half-hour programs with independent plots and characters. The programs are heard on Saturdays at 1 1 p.m. and on Sundays at 8 p.m. Programs within the series feature top-flight British and American acting talent, including Sir Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles and Michael Redgrave. The current Saturday-Sunday schedule pairs The Lives of Harry Lime, starring Orson Welles as the third man, with Theatre Royale, an anthology, on Saturdays. Sunday episodes include The Black Museum, which is based on Scotland Yard stories and is narrated by Welles, plus Horatio Hornblower, with Michael Redgrave in the title role as the English naval hero. KQV Radio's Dave Scott is program host this year, as he was last. 41