Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

ADVERTISERS S AGENCIES BAKERY ADDS RADIO-TV TO RECIPE • Broadcast media are ingredients in Sara Lee expansion • They command 70% of bakery's $1.4 million ad budget Radio and television have been getting a steadily bigger piece of the cake at The Kitchens of Sara Lee in the half-dozen years that span the rise of the firm's bakery products from a modest beginning to their present national distribution. One big reason is the company's belief that the broadcasting media are ideal for stirring the audience's appetite for Sara Lee's higherthan-average-grade baked goods. In the process of gaining national distribution, the Chicago company has relied heavily on broadcast media to expand from an initial $15,000 investment to a multimillion business in 1957. • Item: Sales zoomed from $400,000 in 1951 to $10 million in 1956 and are expected to hit at least $12 million by the end of 1957, according to Sara Lee executives. • Item: The company currently is spending about $1.4 million on all advertising this year, with radio-tv commanding about 70% of that budget, and its budget may be boosted still further in the weeks ahead. • Item: Sara Lee negotiated its first network property, with sponsorship of Arthur Godfrey Time on 201 CBS Radio stations, five quarter-hours monthly, which started Sept. 20 — the result of having gained national distribution. • Item: The bakery also has bought the Tex & Jinx Show on five NBC owned stations as a co-op feature. The contract calls for sponsorship Monday-Friday for two weeks starting Oct. 21 and Monday-Wednesday-Friday for six weeks beginning Nov. 4. Client and agency (Cunningham & Walsh) principals doubt the bakery firm could have achieved such a phenomenal sales rise and company growth within six years without use of broadcast media. Radio and tv are acknowledged by the company as invaluable in collective ability to project taste appeal to carefully pinpointed audiences for new products in new markets at low cost-per-thousand sales. The Kitchens of Sara Lee has been a diligent user of radio-tv participationpersonality-type programs, special events and sports shows in its hop-skip-jump pattern from market to market. Its formula for utilizing broadcast media, according to Ivan Hill, executive vice president of Cunningham & Walsh Inc. (Chicago division), has been: "Short periods of high spot concentration on radio and tv, varying from three to six weeks. . . . Telecasts of special, sports and society events, plus family type shows like bowling, which afford a high degree of identification with Sara Lee's fine, premium, high-priced products." The firm has bought considerable radiotv time since it started advertising in Chicago in 1951. It used broadcast advertising, Mr. Hill says, because one-minute spot exposures provided a "quick and thorough penetration" and gave the company an opportunity to project effectively the "appe Page 40 • October 7, 1957 tite appeal" of its products (All Butter coffee cake, All Butter pound cake, cream cheese cake and chocolate cake, all now available for mass distribution through supermarkets). Charles W. Lubin, president of Kitchens of Sara Lee, explains: "Word of mouth is our most effective advertising — and, in a way, we look at radio and television as an extension of word of mouth. We like the way it can project personal enthusiasm for our products to consumers." Kenneth M. Harris, Sara Lee advertising manager, emphasizes that radio and tv "have been a very important part of our advertising and sales success — before our period of heavy expansion to the present." He adds: "Outstanding cooperation from local radio personalities in giving their personal endorsement to Sara Lee products has been an important plus contributing to the success of our saturation announcement campaigns, because we know that the best way for a personality to become enthusiastic about the fine quality of Sara Lee products is to test them. Arrangements were made to deliver each of our cakes to the more than 100 radio personalities on whose pro SARA LEE STRATEGISTS: (I to r) Charles W. Lubin, president of Kitchens of Sara Lee; John P. Cunningham, president of Cunningham & Walsh, and Ivan Hill, executive vice president in charge of agency's Chicago division, which handles Sara Lee account. grams our commercials were scheduled. The results of this sampling were excellent and in market after market we received reports that the various personalities did extensive ad lib commercials praising the quality of the products they had eaten. "In earlier campaigns where spot tv participations were a part of our schedule, the cooperation of the local tv personalities was equally fine." Considerably strengthened by the fresh money and facilities of the new parent Consolidated Foods Corp. (leading national food processor-distributor), which acquired it in August 1956, Sara Lee is moving quickly to expand production, broaden distribution and meet public demand for its products. (It is operated now as an independent subsidiary by its former management. Consolidated's estimated annual volume: $300 million.) Sara Lee carries radio and/ or tv participation programs and spots in 42 states in 60 principal markets. Its coverage extends from the East Coast (Boston, New York, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Florida) back to Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago and Indianapolis and through such states as Minnesota, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado and California — everywhere but the Pacific Northwest. With the addition of Arthur Godfrey, it now covers the 48 states. The number of markets with radio-tv varies periodically with the product or products to be pushed, but the approximate spot formula remains the same: saturation drives running generally three to six weeks in broadcast media. Among Sara Lee's more recent acquisitions was a bowling show on WOR-TV New York, one of a series of strategically-placed sports programs. (It went into bowling originally last Sept. 5 on WBBM-TV Chicago and was so gratified it renewed the 13 -week series.) Bowling and Sara Lee now have gone their separate ways, at least momentarily, but the kegler sport proved its worth while the shows lasted. They ran 14 weeks on WOR-TV and 26 weeks on WBBM-TV but, with the plethora of such shows, were discontinued on the premise that the viewer's appetite had been satiated. Retailers' sales reports were uniformly good, it was reported. Sara Lee's temporary enchantment with bowling might seem contradictory, considering that sport's identification with beer advertisers [B»T, April 8], and Sara Lee's own emphasis on a quality approach and identification with notable community and cultural events. (Among its sponsorships: an annual telecast of the Opera Ball, kicking off the Chicago Lyric Theatre's season.) Says Mr. Lubin, however: bowling now has attained a "new cultural acceptance" and is recognized as a major sports vehicle for the entire family in which both men and women participate. Sara Lee's bowling commercials on WBBM-TV's Tv Bowling Classic were handled by Lee Phillip, Chicago broadcast personality, and tailored to create "appetite appeal, particularly among women, who form the largest part of television's bowling audience," according to Sara Lee. Always a staunch user of personality shows, Sara Lee executives find it difficult to believe that any personality who handles its commercials could be anything but "genuinely enthusiastic" about the "mouthwatering quality" of its products, and say this enthusiasm is bound to be communicated to televiewers. The basis of this faith is Sara Lee's stress on use of "quality ingredients." As for the economy aspects, Sara Lee found Tv Bowling Classic an effective vehicle because it was (1) low-priced live entertainment, with acceptability and ratings, Broadcasting • . Telecasting