Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1957)

CASE HISTORYSUPERMARKETS It's no secret that fresh produce sales have been weakening as fast as frozen and canned foods have been strengthening. Except, that is, in the 26 Los Angeles supermarkets of Von's Grocery Company, where the downgrade slowed in 1955, reversed itself with a slight uptrend in 1956, and is continuing firm in 1957. Substantially responsible for the counter-trend are the trio pictured above, creators of Von's produce department's 5-year-old daily radio program HOMEMAKERS NEWS: Margee Phillips, KBIG writer; N. H. Bolstad, Von's produce supervisor; and Alan Lisser, KBIG program director, who narrates the fiveminute feature of fruit and vegetable information and practical food helps. "Fresh produce is one area where a store can create a personality for itself . . . something impossible in standardized brand label departments" says "Buzz" Bolstad. "Our company has gone to great lengths to build that personality in each Von's market, and our KBIG show enables us to translate it as an image in thousands of consumer minds. "Tests of HOMEMAKERS NEWS have included offers of cooking booklets, in which demand invariably exceeds supply; sales checks, in which promoted items have risen from 20% to 32%; and a giftbag offer in which a supply of 25,000 was quickly exhausted." Your Weed man is a prime source of other case histories to help your evaluation of Southern California radio. JOHN POOLE BROADCASTING CO. 6540 Sunset Blvd.. Los Angeles 28, California Telephone: Hollywood 3-3105 Nat. Rep. WEED and Company OUR RESPECTS to Guy Maxwell Ule A COLLEAGUE described Max Ule's recent appointment to the post of senior vice president at Kenyon & Eckhardt as a triumph of research and scruple. "He's the coming breed in advertising," the man insisted. "The slick gray flannel man is on his way out." A man of crusty conscience in a ready-made suit, Max Ule presides with tough brilliance and an open door over the following departments at Kenyon & Eckhardt: media, tv-radio programming, research, promotion and marketing plans. His elevation has been conceded generally as a recognition by the agency of the growing importance of marketing and research in advertising. "We believe in research here," Mr. Ule has said. "Research working closely with other professional marketing services and account management people helps to determine whether or not we recommend radio and/or television in a given case. . . . Research organizes the necessary factual materials to help us determine whether, basically, television is a communication medium that fits individual clients' marketing needs. "However, more important than any one particular specialty, is the interaction of trained specialists in the marketing services working under the discipline of basic facts that produces for Kenyon & Eckhardt the kind of challenging environment where men insist on outdoing their previous efforts. Here, friendly but keen group participation brings out our best thinking, burnishes it, and subjects it to the most critical review. In my judgment, only a group of really dedicated people can accomplish this. It is this dedication I think we have; it is our going challenge to expand it, to deepen it, to make it an article of faith in the agency." A thorough man and thoroughly dedicated to his job, Mr. Ule, working with his marketing services colleagues, is in the process of completing a comprehensive volume of principles and standards in marketing for the exclusive use of his staff. He explains this project as "basic building blocks — an internal training document." "Max," said one of his staff members affectionately, "is the last of the red-hot schoolmasters." Actually Mr. Ule, who was born Feb. 17, 1907, began his career as an instructor in economics and marketing at the U. of Chicago where he did both undergraduate and graduate work. Referring to himself as a "low turnover individual," he held only two other jobs before entering the agency field and has worked at only one other agency besides Kenyon & Eckhardt. In lune 1940 after a stint as economist for the trade paper Building Management he joined McCann-Erickson as manager of its research department. Nine years later, in May 1949, he moved to his present location at Kenyon & Eckhardt, New York, as vice president in charge of research. Last year, in a key reorganization at the agency, he was named a senior vice president in charge of four departments including radio and television. CURRENTLY the agency is represented on the air as follows: Ed Sullivan Show for Mercury Division of the Ford Motor Co.; Producers' Showcase and Perry Como for RCA Victor and Whirlpool Corp.; Adventures of Rin Tin Tin for National Biscuit Co. and such television spot advertisers as Pepsi-Cola Bottlers, Lever Bros. (Instant Spry), Beech-Nut Packing Co. and RCA Distributors. In radio, the agency has Lever Bros, sponsoring Helen Trent, Young Dr. Malone, House Party and Ma Perkins; Bob and Ray for RCA Victor, and Game of the Day for Quaker State, in addition to radio spot schedules for Lincoln Mercury Dealers Assn., Mercury Division of Ford Motor Co., Ford institutional, Lever, Pepsi-Cola Bottlers, Chase Manhattan. National Biscuit and BeechNut Packing. A great believer in the team principle, his captains include: lames S. Bealle, vice president, radio-tv department; Joseph P. Braun, vice president in media; Bud Sherak, vice president in research, and Stephen Dietz, vice president in promotion. His door is never closed to them nor to the members of their staffs. "I believe it my job to be available to any of my people at any time," he explained. Summing up his working philosophy once, he said, "I don't say that I achieve it, but it's my aim to act each day as though it were my last, and to study and learn as though I were going to live forever." Mr. Ule is a Sunday school teacher in the associate vestry of Christ Church in Rye, New York. He lives in the town of Rye with his wife, the former Margaret Karahuta, and their two children: Max Jr., 17, and Carol, 13. An opera aficionado, he is particularly partial to Wagner. He is a devotee also of the ballet and the legitimate theatre. Page 24 • May 20, 1957 Broadcasting • Telecasting