Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

ADVERTISERS & AGENCIES continued place in future No-Cal advertising budgets." From the time No-Cal was launched on radio, Mr. Wolff noted, "zooming sales were directly attributable to it." The NoCal people selected the medium to solve their marketing problem. They knew diabetics would be readily receptive but only a small segment of prospective buyers; therefore, attention was given to overweight people with the focus on women who are more figureconscious. Distribution was handled through independent dealers and supermarkets. No-Cal had a limited budget for advertising and promotion and wanted to reach women around the house. The obvious solution to this need, according to Mr. Wolff, was radio. First use of radio included 60second announcements by local personalities. This met with instant success. "Sales soared in one year," Mr. Wolff commented. "Chain store after chain store stocked the product." In its second year, No-Cal added newscast sponsorship for product believablity and prestige. To test the pulling power of the commercials, No-Cal offered a freeoffer booklet (on health dieting). This met with success and No-Cal went into saturation spot campaigns following its nearly two years of personality and news buys. NO-CAL'S WOLF ANHEUSER-BUSCH INC. The famous St. Louis brewer of Budweiser Beer next year expects "a record budget will be poured into radio," its advertising manager, R. E. Krings, asserted in his telling of 'The Budweiser Story." This year alone, Mr. Krings disclosed, Budweiser's spots on radio are being heard on nearly 300 stations in 178 markets with an annual billing in excess of $2.5 million. Accordingly, today, Budweiser is "one of the big-name radio advertisers." Mr. Krings described how the advertiser "rediscovered" radio. This happened at the time when the brewery acquired the St. Louis Cardinals baseball club, in 1953, radio expenditures for Budweiser increasing some 2,000% over the preceding year. During the 1954 baseball season all St. Louis games, as well as those of eight farm clubs in other sections of the country, were being aired on a full sponsorship basis — Budweiser sponsoring the Cards' games on 100 stations alone. "This," he said was "at a time when other major advertisers were cutting down their radio expenditures." Before the ball club acquisition, AnheuserBusch already was feeling radio pressure — wholesalers were buying radio on their own ANHEUSER-BUSCH'S KRINGS and were asking A-B to supply scripts and recorded commercials. Another factor prodding A-B's entry in radio: high costs of network tv sponsorship. The musical commercial campaign on the theme "Where's there's life, there's Bud" now in its second year, has 22 variations and musical moods (including Glenn Miller style, dixieland jazz, country music and even waltz tempo). Each commercial was put together by agency D'Arcy Adv. "as carefully as a concert program, and designed to appeal to a certain taste." In creation, the problem for the series was to translate into terms of sound the highly emotional and dramatic series of full-page color ads which A-B had run in national magazines. Concluded Mr. Krings: "People want to listen. A new campaign that wants to sell a product must have radio as a basic medium." STEPHEN F. WHITMAN & SON INC. Up in mid-1955, Whitman, "the leading national distributor of boxed candy," was a traditional user of print exclusively, said Julian T. Barksdale, vice president in charge of marketing. But after a detailed description of how Whitman learned how to get along with radio, he noted that Whitman expects a "new birth for its advertising program in 1957-58 with increased use of radio and increased sales." Whitman's first spot radio testing was made in 1956 and now the company is in 63 major markets. A few years ago. Whitman shifted agencies from Ward Wheelock to N. W. Ayer & Son (mid1955) at a time when the confectionary industry was in trouble (rising costs, retail price of candy increased and sale of boxed candies down). Caught in a sales slump for its Sampler package, Whitman sought a means to stimulate sales. A try at tv was first on the list with a WHITMAN'S BARKSDALE major portion of funds allocated to spot tv in 45 markets as reminder advertising. Just before Christmas 1955, a measurement disclosed sales up 10% in cities where tv was used. Radio was tested in the fall of 1956 as a deterrent to the rising costs of television. Dayton, Phoenix and Mobile were given the same budget which had been allocated the previous year to tv in these markets. Six-month results from the radio test markets (measured December 1956) showed the following gains: Phoenix 12%, Dayton 17% and Mobile 11.5%, while the national sales increase for the period was 8.6%. By the end of a year. Phoenix showed a 23.2% increase. New radio tests show Whitman sales on the upgrade, and on the basis of all these experiments. Whitman, Mr. Barksdale said, has converted to spot radio in all except a single market. In the 63 markets used, flights of spot announcements are utilized several weeks in advance of special holidays. PHILIP MORRIS' LANDRY PHILIP MORRIS INC. Radio's flexibility was hailed by John T. Landry, brand advertising manager of Philip Morris, for providing "perhaps the most important part" of the cigarette firm's (seven brands of cigarettes) traveling "Philip Morris Country Music Show." Approximately one million persons have attended the shows, which have played in various cities and country towns in 16 states (throughout the South). Since the first of the year — when the shows got started — performances have been held on a sixnight per-week basis with admission free (adults show a pack of Philip Morris). Radio has been used regionally with a 25minute show on a 76-station hookup Friday at 9:05-9:30 p.m., with an average Pulse rating of 3.2, a cost of $2,000 weekly and a cost per thousand of $1.66. Said Mr. Landry: no other medium could adapt itself to originations from small country towns in which the show has played and "still make it as efficient a buy for the client." The show grew from an employe's yearly program and, on Oct. 6, a network program (CBS Radio) has been added as a weekly feature. This has a lineup of 203 stations and "the next 13 weeks will be watched" carefully by PM people. The show and the radio programs have given PM product identification. On tour, promotion spots (3540 in a package) are placed on local stations in advance of the roadshow's billing. Page 28 • October 14, 1957 Broadcasting