Sponsor (Nov 1946-Oct 1947)

PIED l»ll»l-:it CONTESTS Thoiisiiiiil prize* uscil ill l«ksi to sn;iro kill far* .is iiel> I' i u I ■ I for t ln» j!i\ onilv ;iu<licm*o BLOCK promotion, is admittedly not the answer to the reaching of more kid ears, although it has worked effectively with adult programs. The 6 to 12-year-old audience either is at the radio by 5 (in the case of the Mutual Broadcasting System they have to be there at I "eastern time" for the 6-show skein) or they're not. They can't be "block promoted" to listen unless they're at the receiver at the time the programs are actually on the air. The adult ear is keyed to listen at any time and can be sold a block of programs any time. The elementary school age listen when there's something "super" they want to hear. They have to be brought to the dial by means other than air promotion, although once they're ready to hear one program of a mood sequence (programs addressed to the same audience and of the same type i they can be held by cross plugging (programs plugging each other). The 1946-47 plans of the American Broadcasting Company and the Mutual Broadcasting System, over which practically all of the commercial network programs addressed to children are broadcast (with the exception of "Let's Pretend" (CBS) ), are trail blazers for local operations throughout the country — -and they're, to a limited degree, local in their operations too. AEC has adopted a technique used for years by manufacturers of new products who desiie a door -opener to the public purse. The web has purchased one-third page to run a great prize contest. In full color in Puck, the comic weekly (November 10th i, and in the Metro Group comics (Novembei 24th). The combined ciiculation of both syndicated newspaper sections is 18,000,000, when the special newspapers, not in the regular groups but bought by ABC as part of the deal, are included. These ads, in typical kid premium fashion, teasingly, show six prizes which are junior's oi his sister's for the best writing in 50 words or less of the end of the sentence. "I pi (name of program ) because . . .." There an 100 of each of the prizes from the first Huffman bicycles) to the fifth award (Uniflash Cameras), with 500 of the sixth awards (Wearever Zenith Pen and Pencil sets). There are 100 Gruen wrist watches, 100 Philco radios, and 100 Don Budge Tennis Rackets (each of the last with 3 balls). The young listeners are asked to tune in the AEC Adventure Hour, which includes Terry and the Pirates (Quaker Oats), Jack Armstrong (General Mills), Sky King (Peter Pan Peanut Butter), and Tennessee Jed i Ward Eaking — Safeway Stores). After a week they're asked to select the program they "prefer," write and say why, in "less than 50 words." The formula is duck's soup — it's that easy; but millions of package products have been sold by the device, and normal expectations are that it will bring thousands of small ears to the ABC kid four. And the comic selections aie only part of the promotion. Each program will sell the idea, featuring one of the prizes. Spot announcements, slanted so that half are for juvenile ears and half are for the parents, are scheduled all over the lot. No product mentions are included in the promotion. The contest job is to get more listening for the four programs — -with the programs themselves having the job of selling product. Selling the progra i "i ili. 1-page, -color liver supplied i" si i indh idual stations imprint then call letters on I and it itional mini handbills, use suggi copj for car cards and dash carcK I sponsors ol the lour programs are making available window sti for their deal counter throw-aways, and display all stressing the programs and prize contest, not products. The point-ofsale advertising promotion is geared to go right along with the national prize build-up of the entire hour. And to avoid the promotion's falling apart, come the time for making the awards, ;t's planned to announce 100 prize winners daily, with 25 winners informed on each of the four programs, starting with the 100 camera winners on January 13th and ending with the 100 bike awards on the 17th. That's a solid impact way to keep them listening to all four programs and at the same time avoid cluttering up the programs with too much verbiage. And the promotion doesn't end with the network announcement of the gifts. The presentations are to be made by the local stations in the areas where the w;nners live. This gives the local station manager an opportunity to arrange an extra onetime program for a key dealer of an on-theair presentation, with plenty of fanfare, which adds to the overall program promotion. The entire exploitation budget is cut up five ways with each sponsor and the network bearing 20 per cent of the cost. (Actually the station chain will pay more than one-fifth mathematically but the plan was okayed on the five-way basis.) The agencies and the men who pay the bills feel that each is buying a program build-up (including time, advertising, prizes, and (['lease tti rti to Pay Reaching the young idea through contest advertising in the nations Sunday newspaper comics is catching juvenile audiences at their source J*t«n t» tt>« four r»dm pmen ih* right. See r«dx> [,-•*-. <n