Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

The Role of an Agency's Radio Department By MONTE W. SOHN Vice President, Picard Sohn, Inc. in Advertising Man Calls Many of His Colleagues to Account or Cold-Shouldering the Station-Tested Program LIVELY ARGLME1ST on the question whether ponsors should use new or old programs when they rst take the air was started when Walter Neff, of ^OR, Newark, in the April 1 issue of Broadcasting uggested that experimentation in this field be left o the broadcasters. Bernard A. Fenner, of KOIL, Council Bluffs-Omaha, on May 1, contended that ew features should introduce new advertisers, iow comes an advertising agent with a view that oincides for the most part with Mr. Neff's. The uthor of this article, a partner in the Picard-Sohn jigency for ten years, proposes that agencies limit heir activities in the program field, and effect a ruce with the broadcasting companies. THE TOY characteristics of tdio were a little less present, if were more work and less play, all of us didn't secretly believe e were potential Roxies — the ?ency benefit would be vast. As is, every advertising organizajon of the merest consequence i>asts a radio department whose ork in great measure is engageent in very pleasant guessing >ntests. When the guessing is >od, some client's sales are agreeply stimulated. When the guessig is bad — the client pays just the .me. All of which should make ly intelligent agency executive do little intensive pondering. Here are the broadcasting commies spending staggering sums 1 sustaining programs to keep eir circulation large. They emloy abilities whose background years of audience study. They ly fancy prices for some of these rvices. They invest hugely in chestral, vocal, dramatic humans, aey put on the air features whose >peal, whose box office value is mbtless, and when one of our ients reveals a radio wishfulness, e have to build a brand new act r him, whose worth is the toss of coin. We deliberately turn our icks on the sustaining programs at have proved their merit. We ust create something different, nd we do. And having done so, ir professional pride remains a rgin, our place in the sun is justi;d, our integrity is inviolate. And en we communicate by short ave with God, who we hope will ess the job with success. My gyroscope may be a little out kilter. The valves may need inding or something. But if the imediate foregoing isn't level .ought, I'll trade the gyro for a ■ opworn copy of Paine's "Age of ason." It might be that conscientious agency men feel they must justify their 15 per cent for radio service. It might be they think the business of entertaining, now a part of advertising work, must be learned to protect their companies against entertainment racketeering. It might be professional pride, jealousy, suspicion, or just plain avarice for extra profit through talent commissions. Whatever it is, it's too bad. Too Much Experimenting THE UNQUENCHABLE yen for "another Amos 'n' Andy" has been satisfied a dozen times by the broadcasting companies. Never, so far as I know, by an advertising agency. To the owners of the quizzical eyebrows I ask who created "Gene and Glen," who built and sustained so lone: and confidently "The Rise of the Goldbergs," who fathered the "Lucky Strike Dance Orchestra," where was born the idea of the "Main Street" sketches. I should ask the doubters what they know of the origin of Sisters of the Skillet, the vocally versatile Phil Cook, Uncle Don, Tony Wons, the Mills Brothers, Morton Downey, Bing Crosby, Kate Smith. Radio made these great audial attractions . . . but it was an inside job. The callers-to-account will by now be paging me for cross-examination. Am I suggesting they button up their radio departments, fire their gradually developed radio effectives ? I am not. Timidly, I am hinting there is entirely too much experimentation with new acts, new ideas if we really know anything about box office values. If in these few years of stirring up tanbark and rubbing elbows with tinsel we have absorbed the ele Mr. Sohn ments of theatre, we cannot better prove it than to admit the already wows that the stations have achieved. Let me depart for a moment with analogy. Here is a new account, The Mater Tempus Clock Company. Our visual experts, our merchandising geniuses, our copy minds, our researchers for days have been in maternity hospital, expectant. Their brain children are worried over. Exerybody hopes the issue will be notable. Nobody knows. Now imagine — if you do this readily — imagine a publisher's representative, for Cosmopolitan, for instance, walking into the shop. He has an unusual message. Says he, "Quit wondering what kind of advertising campaign to produce for Tempus Clocks. Here's the works." And he unfolds from his portfolio a series of twelve advertisements. "These," says he, "are a campaign now running in Cos' which people are gaga about. We got eight thousand unsolicited letters from readers, without any sort of trick offer, gag, contest, when the very first piece appeared. And more have been coming in every month. And," he continues, "here's something that will stop any client." He reaches into his case and brings forth an affidavit from a well known firm of accountants. "Through an accident of oversight, our make up man left out one of these clock ads, the piece scheduled for the April issue. And eighteen thousand people wrote in asking why it was left out. If such a thing could happen, is there any doubt the agency would by Cosmopolitan's already proved clock campaign ? The point needs no elaboration. Extravagant, fantasy so far as the print press is concerned, it is fact and circumstance in radio. ay 15, 1932 • BROADCASTING The statement might here be heard that many a sour job has been sponsored by the broadcast companies and many an ambitious idea has failed to come off. Which would be true. I have listened to some sustaining programs that I knew were lousy as to audience merit — knew certainly, because I liked them so well. But the death of such programs cost no product prestige, no client's good will, no agent gray hairs. Their loss was only the broadcast company's — in audience, in cash from their courageous pocketbooks. A Common Weakness EVER SINCE the beginning of advertising, agencies have had to deal with clients who insisted upon dipping into the advertising job because they had "been in the shoe business for seventy-four years — and nobody understands our particular problem as we do." It took a long time to educate clients to the point where they permitted comparative freedom of action to the agent. Now, in his coldshouldering the broadcast company's program department, we find the agent doing the same thing, on much the same ground. "Ah," ahs the Superior Advertising Agency, "But our case . . . you aren't talking about us. No cut-and-try, feel-your-way, experimental ground is this radio department. Oliver J. Holliwell, playwright, manager, years-long showman extraordinary on Broadway heads the staff. Orifice N. Rubato, arranger, composer, pianist, conductor, also is on our payroll — directing the music division. And the men they've gathered around them makes ours the best radio department advertising." Pardon, Mr. Superior. You don't quite understand. I'm casting no aspersions on radio departments. Yours is doubtless one of the best. And a good radio department is an important essential in any agency. I'm coming to a comment on its functions later. But meantime, would you ask Messrs. Rubato and Holliwell a bit of a question? Ask genius Rubato if he ever wrote a melody that was no go . . . Ask him what happened to his opera "Virginia Dare," or his "Adirondack Suite," and perhaps also he can explain why his musical comedy "The Roaring Forties" closed in three weeks. Ask Mr. Holliwell how many of his plays were really successful and if there were any flops in the lot. Then ask each of them if there is not some way of predetermining whether a play or a ballad, a concerto or a farce will succeed. What Agencies Can Do THE SUM of it is that no one knows. And when the broadcast company is willing to invest hugely to find out, the discovery of a success ought to be the signal for a scramble by agents and clients. How shall we best use our radio (Continued on page 24) Page 11