We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
1959 Commercials
Trend continues in favor of music. Humor to stay but with more sell
Hard Sell With
» What's lhal lunc you're W humming under your breath?
Could be it's not on the jukebox or in your record collection and nobody sings it at the Met, but it's a "hit" nonetheless — the latest singing commercial to catch your fancy.
Is it selling the product?
That's a question which prompts provocative comment from creative directors at five major advertising agencies reportedly having a combined total of $46.7 million in radio billings.
In interviews with key creative people at J. Walter Thompson, McCann-Erickson, Kenyon &: Eckhardt, Foote, Cone & Belding and Erwin Wasey, Ruthrauff & Ryan, u. s. RADIO has tuned in on a lively discussion of trends (timewise and stylewise) for commercials in 1959.
The consensus: Music is first on the advertisers' hit parade. Humor, on the upswing for the past several years, will continue to grow in usage — but with a difference. All in all, there will be increasing "hard sell" with a velvet touch.
Timewise, minutes are the main choice as music becomes increasingly a prime ingredient. With radio
growing in demand as an advertising buy, availabilities will of necessity determine length to some extent, but as one agency spokesman says, "The best commercial will always be the one that's long enough to do the job required."
Expanding on the theme of music, agency people estimate "harmony will prevail" in two out of three commercials this year. Emphasis will be on quality production, underscoring the selling message with everything from the voice of a top recording star singing in your ear to a 35-piece orchestra thrumming unobtrusively in the background. JWT experts go so far as to predict cha-cha will be the rhythm for 1959 commercials — the agency has conducted its own research of the popular music field, and concludes that cha-cha and other Latin American beats will boom to peak sales next month. Commercials, the agency believes, will follow the maracas soon after.
Regarding humor, representatives from the five agencies believe the light-hearted approach typified by such characters as Bert and Harry (for Piel's Brothers beer in the
40
U. S. RADIO • Januar>' 1959