Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1957)

ADVERTISERS AND AGENCIES WHAT FUTURE HOLDS FOR RADIO-TV • Keynoter Barton says 15% commission will dwindle • Sweeney tells WSAAA '57 will set record for radio raphy, we'll show you a living cell killed by a drug. What a wonderful tool for those of you who want to prove that your mouth wash, your drug, your disinfectant really kills germs. When you see a thing with your own eyes, you can really believe it! Did you know you can actually take x-rays on motion picture film? You can use x-ray film to show how your puncture-proof tire works, or how your oil coats cylinders thinly and evenly, or how your shoe fits. Now I'd like to explore the cartoon commercial. If I were writing an animated commercial this morning the one thing that would be on my mind is: "What can I do to give this spot visual distinction?" Here's a field where, I believe, it's mighty easy to get lost in the shuffle. I have yet to see an animated commercial that had the visual impact of Walt Disney's "Fantasia" or came close to the artistry of the French film abstractionists. For one thing, most of our animated films seem to move in only two directions — either to the left, or to the right. See our little friends up there on the screen? They live in a world in which they can move only to the left ... Or to the right. To the left. ... Or to the right. It can be visually thrilling to move in another direction. Instead of going to the left or to the right, let's try moving forward. Another available animation technique which, to my knowledge, has never been used on tv commercials is the third dimension you can achieve through the use of the multiplane camera. Let's take a flat piece of art. It has only two dimensions. Notice as we dolly in how COMMERCIAL DISPLAY For a sampler of tv spots studied by AAAA last week SEE PAGES 48-49 the moon gets bigger. That, of course, would look very unnatural to the viewer. And when we dolly back, the moon becomes smaller. That, too, is unnatural. However, through multi-plane camera technique, perfected by Walt Disney, the art work is separated into several layers which can be moved away or toward the camera. That gives us third dimension — just as our eyes see it. Now here's the same moonlight scene with third dimension. And notice how that moon stays put. Have you explored your tv sound tracks lately? Here's an area where I feel too little exploration has been done. Sit in your projection room sometime, turn off the projection lamp and listen to only the sound tracks of your commercials. Do you hear a new kind of voice, a new kind of music, a new kind of sound? If not, maybe you're missing a bet. Let's not forget, the ear is half of television. Page 38 • April 29, 1957 WHAT the next five years will mean for radio and tv and for the advertisers using this medium and the agencies buying time was outlined Thursday at the opening session of the Western States Advertising Agencies Assn.'s seventh annual conference, held Thursday-Saturday at Palm Springs, Calif. With 320 registered at the time of the opening luncheon, the session became the largest yet held by WSAAA, its president, Tim Christopher, reported. WILL 15% COMMISSION YIELD TO FEE SYSTEM? An expanding national economy in the next five years, with a parallel expansion of advertising in all media, was predicted by Roger Barton of Alfred Politz Research Inc., in his keynote address to the WSAAA conference. He said that in this expansion tv would show the fastest growth and spot radio would continue to flourish. Mr. Barton also anticipates the recapture of advertising control by the advertising manager, upgraded to marketing manager, from the advertising agency, which will produce and place the advertising dictated by the overall strategy of the marketing manager. Large agencies will offer a multiplicity of services and the 15% commission system of compensation will dwindle as it is replaced by fees based on services. The small agency will have the choice of concentrating on advertising alone or affiliating itself with other agencies. Last year's advertising volume of more than $10 billion was "almost five times what was spent in 1940, and almost twice what was spent in 1950," he reported, with expectations that "advertising expenditures in 1965 will be somewhat more than $14 billion." "These are all big figures, but what do they mean to us?" Mr. Barton said. "They mean, for one thing, that more dollars are spent per person for advertising each year to keep the economy rolling. If you divide the money spent for advertising in 1940 by the population you get $15.86, and this figure rises to $37.89 by 1950 and to $54.57 by 1955. By 1965 it will be $70.46. Of course, the value of the dollar in terms of the prices consumers paid for commodities has been declining, so that the expenditure in 1955 in terms of 1940 dollars was $30.32 instead of the actual $54.57, but that still makes it twice what it was per person in 1940. "I realize that these figures are not meaningful to advertisers, because the latter are seeking audiences. But just in terms of our economy, it does mean that advertising is taking a bigger bite." Turning to individual media, Mr. Barton reported that "current trends suggest that television will continue to win the growth prizes five years from now, and that spot radio will still flourish. The greatest hazard to tv will be increasing costs to the advertiser, and the greatest hazard to spot radio will be avarice. By avarice I mean any tendency of broadcasters to overload the daytime programs with commercials so that the interests of the audience are subverted to the interests of the advertisers. "Lately there has been a considerable hassle over subscription tv, and although the FCC has all but decided to authorize an experimental fling, I fail to see that this can be a threat. I personally doubt that there are enough persons who would pay for the privilege of seeing better tv programs than are shown now that their defection could ever seriously affect the size of the present television audiences. This is a fact that could not be determined without trial (perhaps a special research test in sample areas), for there would not be greater error than merely to ask respondents; they would have too great a tendency to say yes. The British, incidentally, are said to prefer their free commercial programs better than their BBC programs. "There has been considerable criticism of broadcast programs because of alleged low cultural level and lack of taste. Whatever criticism may be justified on this score will probably be self-rectifying. The broadcast people are apt to play a little ahead of their audiences, but not much. They will probably improve the level of their programs only as they detect improvement in their audiences. This improvement will be accelerated by many influences outside of tv. Good taste is something that is not developed quickly, and television is hardly 10 years old." Rising costs of producing magazines (paper cost up 57% since the war, for example) have forced magazines to compete vigorously for circulation and advertising, with the result that advertising rates also have risen (80% from 1946 to 1956, 37% from 1950 to 1956) and even so the net profit after taxes of a group of representative magazines has dropped from 8% of revenue in the first full year of postwar operation to 2.6% last year, Mr. Barton said. Newspapers "are caught in the same profit squeeze that affects magazines," he said. "In spite of the fact that newspapers are gaining a greater total of advertising and great circulation, they obviously need more income." Examing the advertiser-agency relationship, Mr. Barton noted that advertising managers, in reappraising agency services and compensation after the Government's victory in the antitrust suit, "see an opportunity to reassert themselves. . . . Advertising managers have in many cases been subordinate in importance to advertising agencies. The latter have produced the brilliant Broadcasting • Telecasting