Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

I FRIDAY AT 5 Grocery Product Advertisers Boost Spot Ty Spending 39 Percent in Two Years Updated study by Edward Petty & Co. shows spot television as principal medium in four product categories New York — Posting a 39 percent gain in two years, spot tv is outstripping competitive media in grocery product advertising. That's the gist of a just-released study prepared by the television division of Edward Petry and Co. The report, which is an updating of a 1961 survey of the field, shows that network increased 8 percent in grocery advertising and magazines 4 percent, while newspapers lost ground to the tune of minus-26 percent. Commenting on the story, Martin L. Nierman, president of Petry, said, "Advertisers in food and related fields were among the first to recognize and imaginatively exploit the tremendous TV Stations Back 'Food is a Bargain' Campaign New York — With the commercial dollar value of time donated pegged at $135,606, Television Bureau of Advertising reports that a total of 116 stations supported the recent nationwide "food is a bargain"' campaign. Tvs part in the drive consisted of a one-minute spot produced and distributed by TvB in cooperation with the Grocery Manufacturers of America. Inc.. and the National Assn. of Food Chains. Selling point in the TvB-prepared spot was that food prices in the United States are a bargain compared with other nations. Also that the average American family spends only 19 cents of each after-tax income dollar for food, as compared with 26 cents 15 years ago. Commenting on the report on use of the spot, Norman E. Cash, TvB president, said that "the stations' support of the campaign reflects their appreciation not only of the content of the public service message itself but of the food and grocery trade's heavy investment in television advertising." potentials of the market-by-market approach in television." In the breakdown of grocery-addollars-spent, the study cites a $112 million increase for spot tv between 1961 and 1963, noting that it was a larger dollar volume than was registered in the four-year period, 19561960. Total expenditures for spot tv in 1963 were $401.6 million as compared with $257.4 on network tv, $136.1 million for magazines and $117.8 million in newspapers. Breaking the field down into four broad product classifications — food, soft drinks-confections, laundry products-cleansers-polishes and paper products — the study points out that since 1961 only spot tv has increased its share of the budgets in all four product categories, "and is now the principal medium in each line." In food, spot tv boosted its share of ad budgets from 32 percent in 1961 to 40 percent in 1963. The report adds that food advertisers now invest more in spot tv than they spend in magazines and newspapers combined. In the laundry products-cleansers category, it was pointed out that the spot medium jumped from second ^j place in 1961 to leadership in 1963 with advertisers increasing their spo expenditures by 27 percent over th< two-year period. Ad spending for the soft drink' confections group shows an 87 per cent hike in the two-year period foi spot tv, according to the study, whili paper product advertisers more than doubled their spot tv commitment moving the medium into the lead ir ad volume. Tv Station's 'Pinpoint' « Teen-age Time Buy Providence, R.I. — The Christmas spirit, and some sound media planning, were both in evidence last wee) in an unusual radio time purchase tv station WTEV New Bedfori through Providence's Bob Bernstein Agency. WTEV signed a 1 3-week spot schedule, covering 16 announcements per week, on radio outlet WMPA. Whi makes the buy a media oddball W that WMPA is a daytime, limitedpower outlet operating with a twobloch coverage area and manned by a group of teen-agers. The station is "recognized," but not licensed, by FCC, and is heard by some 1000 people in the upper-middle-class residential area known as Mount Pleasant. WMPA, which landed the tv ^-t tion promotion contract on its v&y first agency-level presentation, will carry tune-in plugs for the Les Crane Show, as well as the MCA-syndicated Lloyd Thaxton Show. Merkel In Radio Campaign to Offset Meat Seizure Jamaica, N.Y. — Armed with the blessings of New York City markets commissioner Albert C. Pacetta, Merkel, Inc., unwittingly involved in a meat-adulteration scandal, has turned to spot radio as part of an all-out campaign to restore its image. Merkel received a healthy dose of unwanted national publicity when 40,000 pounds of meat, labeled boned beef, turned out to contain a quantity of horsemeat. Later investigation showed that the company had been duped by presence of counterfeit government inspection seals. Exonerated by markets commissioner Pacetta, both at press conferences and in writing, Merkel last week embarked on a crash ad program involving more than 150 spots over metropolitan New York radio stations, WOR, WABC, WNBC, WHN, WMCA, WVNJ. Spots, whidi were initially scheduled to run for a three-day period, emphasize the soundness of the 63-year Merkel name and the reputation of the organization behind it. Supporting the radio drive will be a series of newspaper ads reproducing a letter from commissioner Pacetta which urged all customers and buyers of Merkel products to "reinstate their orders and to continue purchasing and displaying the Merkel products in their respective establishments." SPONSOR