U. S. Radio (Jan-Dec 1959)

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Outlining plans for part of the radio campaign on eight PGW-represented stations are (left to right): J. H. Maxwell, advertising-sales pronnotion manager of Homelite; W. E. Johnson, assistant advertising manager; Sam Henry, radio account executive of Peters, Griffin, Woodward Inc., and P. J. Halperin, also assistant advertising manager. Principally early morning times were used. live announcer copy, usually suggesting the listener contact the local dealer through the yellow pages. "This 'operation radio' and the resulting tie-ins definitely helped to stimulate sales and particularly aided us in getting saws into dealers' stores," declares Mr. Halperin, whose company headquarters in Port Chester, N. Y. The use of radio — the mass medium— to sell as expensive and specialized a product as a chain saw represented an advertising experiment for the manufacturing firm, Avhich claims to have ranked first in saw sales in 1957. "Previously we had relied largely on local newspapers, farm journals and national magazines to sell our products," Mr. Halperin states. "We had, however, been thinking about radio tor quite some time, so that when we drew up plans to bring our new Zip model into the market last August we decided that the moment had come to include the sound medium in our budget," he explains. Mr. Halperin states that Homelite and its agency, Sutherland-Abbott, Boston, believed that radio could help sell Zips to the special types of persons in the market lor one-man chain saws. "The Zip," he explains, "is made principally for farmers, fishermen, campers, hunters and ranch owners — as opposed to the heavier models, also made by Homelite, that professional lumbermen employ. "The saw is the lightest of its type (weighing approximately 18 pounds) and is more than powerful enough to do the jobs required by these men," Mr. Halperin declares. "While we believe it is the best saw of its kind on the market, it is not the cheapest, priced at $169.95. So we had a real selling job to do." Early Morning Wherever possible, Homelite bought early morning (five to six a.m.) shows to catch the farmer before he started his day's work. Farm director programs were preferred because of the prestige these men enjoy among the agriculturists in their areas. Homelite also hoped to pick up listeners among sportsmen who are often out driving in the early morning. "We selected one station per mar ket on the basis of both power and the following of the jxirticular farm director," says John Spafford, associate account executive at SutherlandAbbott. "The campaign consisted of two weeks on the air and one week off, with 250 Homelite dealers supporting the schedule with spots of their own. The dealers often bought adjacencies to our own spots to give the national commercial local identification. In addition, while we were off the air they frequently bought time both on the station selected by Homelite and on other stations in the area," he says. In addition to its 2,600 dealers, Homelite has 70 branch offices across the country, many of which similarly aided the parent company's radio usage. (The branch and district offices sell Homelite products to both the consumer and the franchised dealers who usually carry many types of farm equipment in addition to saws.) Many of the dealers, Mr. Halperin reports, because of the results of the campaign, continued to use radio on their own for the following 13-week period, now in progress. V. S. RADIO • January 1959 NAB LIBRARY