Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

the newspaper medium affords an advertiser. And just to close, because they're keeping us in this spot to a six minute limit, and it's certainly a tough thing to do when you have so much to say . . . Six newspapers enable advertisers to play midwife to a new product, to apply the full motor to ailing markets, to act as the backbone of regional and private brand merchandising success. Then they can just as surely bring brand leadership to any national advertiser who employs them to their full advantage and who adheres to the basic marketing strategy that all business is local. THE CASE FOR MAGAZINES By Glenn Wiggins Magazine Advertising Bureau RATHER than argue today for magazines' share of a mythical $10 million budget, let me state right off the bat that we get a good share anyway. So I'm not going to make any silly prediction we should get $5 million, $2 million, $1 million or $10 million. We'll get some part of it anyway. And like all media there's a place for us. Tv, newspapers, billboard writing, skywriting, anything, there's room for all media. And we're not fighting any other media. All I'm going to do is try to make a case for magazines as a background for any well integrated campaign. Let me first tell you of the magazine reading families. They are large users of all products. And here's why. From a survey in 1950 made by the government, magazine readers account for 75% or three quarters of the total consumer expenditures in smoking products alone, a healthy chunk. We acknowledge and agree to the fact that other media of course would logically be used for a well managed cigarette campaign. But we still deserve a big chunk. It stands to reason these other media should be used for cigarette advertising. They are universally displayed, universally consumed and universally distributed, and they have rapid turnover. And they are well adapted to media that provide quick impressions such as tv, radio, newspapers and billboards. There are others, too. Incidentally, right here 1 should like to interrupt myself a second to tell you, because we believe it is rather significant, that between 1954 and 1955, total tv network billing showed a healthy increase of some 32%. But cigarette manufacturers' use of network tv fell off. At the same time, in 1955, cigarette manufacturers made a substantially increased dollar investment in magazines. Not outstanding news, maybe, but rather significant. Now, let me tell you about the magazine advantages of cigarette advertising. We believe there are only five basic advantages to cigarette advertising in magazines. The first is authority. People believe the magazines they read. If they didn't, they wouldn't be spending the money they do to subscribe to them or buy them at newsstands. They have authority because magazines build receptive reading audiences. Magazines work in partnership with your advertising, with cigarette advertising. They help clinch a sale by coupling the believability of magazines with the confidence consumers have in your brand name, or a brand name. Maybe this authority that magazines have is one of the reasons why after the cancer scare, people started going back into magazines with their cigarette advertising. The second advantage of magazines is selectivity. Magazines attract the best and biggest purchasers of any product, the same way a good salesman first tackles his best customers. Each individual magazine selects a particular group of readers, issue after issue, because that magazine is edited for a particular group of readers. Whichever segment of the American market anybody wishes to reach, there are magazines read by that group of people. The next is permanence. The printed word has a definite advantage over the spoken word. Because it is remembered longer, by the simple token that people can spend time absorbing it. Magazines stay in the home for weeks and months. They are picked up repeatedly to be read, giving the advertising message MR. WIGGINS that many more chances to register. Along with this advantage naturally goes color. With today's exact printing methods and more development still to come, where else can an advertiser get such a faithful and lasting reproduction of his product's package? The next is vitality. Magazines are modern, fresh in lay-out, and they are new. They have to be, or people would stop buying them. Magazines create a mood for buying, because they have only one thing to sell — something new, whether it be information, ideas, services, or entertainment. And the last advantage, and nowhere by far the least, is economy. Magazine readers are usually younger, better educated, and have more money to spend than those people who do not read magazines. They are better prospects. And, the cost of reaching these better prospects is lower in magazines than in any other national advertising medium. Now, to sum up. Magazines reach everywhere, into every nook and cranny in our whole country. They follow people wherever they go, and while they are national in scope, they are read in the home. That makes them plenty local, too! Magazines are read by younger, better educated people with more money to spend. Magazines have dealer impact. They are selective. They have permanence. They are colorful. And they have authority, and the cost of reaching these better prospects is not high in national magazines. THE CASE FOR SPOT RADIO By Robert E. Eastman John Blair & Co. APPROXIMATELY 16%— to be specific, $ 1 ,600,000— of the $10 million total cigarette budget should be spent for spot radio advertising. Spot radio is based upon local programming. Today, local programming is the strongest of all radio broadcasting from the standpoint of sales effectiveness and audience. Local programming fits. It fits the living habits of an active, mobile population. Friendly personalities — salesmen — appeal to the busy housewife as she moves from room to room doing her household chores; it fits men and women on the move in their automobiles; it fits the individual listening of teenagers and children. In the decade 1945-1955, the total number of radio sets increased from 59,000,000 to a staggering 132,400,000. Why were all these sets purchased? One good reason is because of local programming with its appeal to individual listening desires. During the past four highly competitive years, 1952 through 1955. the ratings of local programming have increased phenomenally. These have been the four most competitive years that radio has ever known, and yet, enterprising stations throughout the country have had about a 50% increase in ratings of their local programming. Most people will grant the fact that local programming, and therefore spot radio, offers greater audience today, but the big question is, how does it sell, how does it move merchandise? If we had the time today, we could show you incontrovertible proof of the sales effectiveness of spot radio by hundreds of local advertisers and many national advertisers. This is all 1955 proof. The experience of the local advertiser should never be ignored because he has the most sensitive instrument of all by which to measure advertising — his cash register. We have a keen appreciation of the value and place of other February 27, 1956 • Page 59