Broadcasting (Jan - Mar 1949)

AAAA Meeting Theme Is Challenge of Buyers' Market AGENDA for the 1949 annual meeting of the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies, to be held at The Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., on Thursday and Friday, April 7 and 8, was announced last week. Theme of the sessions is to be "How will advertising meet the challenge of the shift from a sellers' to a buyers' market?" Conclave will be launched Thursday morning at a session presided over by Clarence B. Goshorn, Benton & Bowles president, and AAAA vice chairman. A panel of five, moderated by Fairfax M. Cone, chairman of Foote, Cone & Belding's executive committee and AAAA director in charge, will discuss the "public relations of advertising" in regard to government, educators, consumer leaders and the public. Panel members will include Theodore S. Eepplier, president of The Advertising Council; Dr. Kenneth Dameron, director of Committee on Consumer Relations in Advertising; Henry Abt, director of Brand Names Foundation; Elon Borton, president of Advertising Federation of America, and Edward L. Greene, general manager of National Better Business Bureau. The matter of agency personnel, and its training, will be the subject of the second portion of Thursday morning's meeting. John P. Cunningham, partner in the NewellEmmett Co., and AAAA directorin-charge, will preside, assisted by Richard Turnbull, AAAA vice president. Fletcher D. Richards, president of the company bearing his name, and his committee on agency personnel will present some agency training programs and proposed booklets on the fundamental truths of advertising. Objectives of Tests Objectives of AAAA examinations for advertising, and appraisal of the accomplishments of the tests to date, will be presented by John E. Wiley, chairman of the board. Fuller & Smith & Ross, and his examinations committee, assisted by the 16 council and chapter committees offering the tests in 1949. Thursday afternoon will be left to the discretion of attendees, who may devote the time to sports. There will be no organized luncheon or cocktail parties on the opening day. Annual dinner, to be held Thursday night, will have no speakers, or speakers' table, but will be formal. Friday morning's business session, to be headed by Thomas D'A. Brophy, Kenyon & Eckhardt president and AAAA board chairman, will feature a presentation on ethics. Mr. Goshorn, assisted by George L. Ogle, AAAA staff executive, will outline the first two years of the organization's interchange on objectionable advertising, omiting identification of individual advertisements, and discuss the continuation of the interchange. They will also outline current violations of ethics in agency competition, mainly in solicitation. Following recess, a research session will be held, conducted by F. B. Ryan Jr., Ruthrauff & Ryan president and AAAA director in charge, aided by Kenneth Godfrey, AAAA staff executive. Subjects to be considered, under the general heading of "developments in the social sciences and what they may hold for advertising in the future" include: The economic position of advertising in today's market, distribution changes influencing advertising, advertising and full employment, what the rise in the educational level means to advertising, and polling methods. Friday's luncheon, presided over by the newly elected chairman of the board, will feature as speakers H. T. Appleton, president, and C. Anstice Brown, director, Institute of Incorporated Practitioners in Advertising, London, England. Other speakers at Friday's luncheon are still to be announced. Registration for the meeting is announced as $15 for members and guests, $5 for ladies. IRE SESSION Four-Day Convention Opens in N. Y. WITH A GENERAL convention theme of "Radio-Electronics — Servant of Mankind," the 1949 convention of the Institute of Radio Engineers opens today at New York's Hotel Commodore and Grand Central Palace.. During the four-day meeting, some 15,000 experts in the technical aspects of radio are expected to attend the technical sessions at the hotel and visit the show at the nearby exhibition hall, where more than 220 concerns will display more than $6 million worth of radio apparatus of every kind, from minute parts to complete broadcasting stations. Nearly 200 technical papers and ANA SPRING MEET Tentative Agenda Announced TENTATIVE time-table and speaker commitments for the Assn. of National Advertisers' annual spring meeting were announced last week. The three-day session, to be hald March 23-25 at the Homestead, Hot Springs, Va., calls for a "thorough analysis of the problems advertising departments are called on to solve today," according to the program established by a committee of ANA members headed by Bill Drisler, Cannon Mills Inc. advertising manager. Other program committee members include: John W. Hubbell, Simmons Co.; Walter Lantz, Lambert Pharmacal Co.; Howard Chapin, General Foods Corp.; L. Robe Walter, The Flintkote Co.; W. B. Potter, Eastman Kodak Co.; Donald S. Frost, BristolMyers Co., and Russ Ziegler, Cluett, Peabody & Co. Ad Budgeting According to the tentative timetable, the meeting will open Wednesday morning with a session on "budgeting advertising expenditures to do an adequate job in good times and bad." By means of a dramatic sketch, Page 26 • March 7, 1949 case histories and speakers yet to be announced, advertisers are promised answers to such questions as: When to spend freely and when to cut down; the advisability of advertising in bad times by a company whose trademarks are household words; knd the reasons for increasing advertising in 1949. Case histories will show that consistent advertising pays off in greater market value per share, and that companies that advertise extensively have lower total general, selling and administrative costs, and higher profits, than those that don't. Afternoon Agenda Wednesday afternoon, the subject of "getting more sell into your advertising" will be discussed, with members outlining the why's, how's, and when's of using heavy sell or broad institutional copy. Thursday's session will feature a solid treatment of television and where it stands, and what the advertiser can expect from it in the next couple of years. On the list for discussion are "what can TV commercials do for your product" and "the pros and cons of going into television now." The video presentation is part of a general meeting on media effectiveness in selling goods, and a discussion on the best channels through which to reach consumers. Friday Sessions Two concurrent sessions will be held on Friday. One will concern "speeding consumer goods' sales at the retail level" and the other "speeding sales of industrial products." Audiences at the consumer goods meeting will hear James Rotto, vice president of Washington's Hecht Stores on "Why Some Manufacturers Lose Out at Point of Sale and Why Others Cash In." The consumer session will also feature a clinic on merchandising, displays and retail sales training. Friday afternoon will be devoted to a speakerless session, featuring questions and answers on timely problems. "Something New in Entertainment," a program created for ANA by NBC, will climax the three-day session on Friday night. ANA urges that members stay Saturday and Sunday for a week-end of sports, resting, or getting acquainted with fellow members. special sessions will be presented, covering scientific advances in knowledge and engineering techniques achieved during the past year. Among the subjects scheduled are television; AM; FM; pulse modulated broadcasting systems, which can carry a dozen or more programs simultaneously on a single channel; "semi-conductorcrystals devices which can do almost everything accomplished by vacuum tubes, electronic computers, radar devices and many more. Meeting will formally open at 10:30 this morning (March 7) in the Grand Ballroom of the Commodore, with an address on "Perpetual Youth and the IRE" by I. S. Coggeshall, Western Union Telegraph Co. The technical sessions, which will run for the duration of the meeting, will be further supplemented with a cocktail party Monday evening, the president's luncheon honoring IRE's incoming president, Stuart L. Bailey of Jansky & Bailey on Tuesday, and the annual banquet Wednesday evening. Frank Stanton, CBS president, will make the banquet address on "Television and People." Court Review Bill A SUBCOMMITTEE of the House Judiciary Committee last week approved a bill permitting applicants seeking court review of FCC actions to file their anpeals in the U. S. Court of Appeals in the judicial circuit in which they reside [Broadcasting, Feb. 28]. The bill (HR-2915), authored by Rep. Sam Hobbs (D-Ala.) was introduced Feb. 21. It was favorably reported to the full committee March 2 by a subcommittee, headed by Rep. Hobbs. BROADCASTING • Telecasting