Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

ADVERTISERS S AGENCIES continued RAMBLER PICKS RADIO FOR DRIVE • American Motors pins its hopes on fast-rising small car • Having dropped tv, carmaker boosts network, spot radio Rambler's hot for radio — both network and spot. The American Motors Corp. car, which looms as the No. 1 entry in AMC's stable now that the carmaker is discontinuing Nash and Hudson, has been burning up the track — saleswise — due to radio. So claims Rambler Advertising Manager E. B. Brogan in a "progress report" on Rambler issued last week by the client's agency, Geyer Adv., New York. According to Geyer, Rambler's radio messages are not just reaching a sizable weekend audience, they "can also be credited with producing a good share of this year's extraordinary sales successes." The unique factor is that network radio has been an "economy" buy, which will now represent slightly less than 10% of the total Rambler advertising budget for the fiscal year 1958, effective this past Oct. 1. This will be an approximate 50% increase over previous network radio allocations. Rambler's 1957 model output, according to last week's Automotive News, the auto industry's trade journal, was up from 1956's 66,573 to 84,627. The industry as a whole for 1957 turned out 6,210,724 units, a drop of 84,856 units from 1956's model output of 6,295,580. Rambler has a price range of $1,920 to $2,285 (without extras). For the first six months of this year, Rambler sales roared ahead to 43,940 units as against the first six months of 1956's 36,380 units. For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, Rambler clocked a 31% gain over the comparable sales figure for the preceding fiscal year, and for June alone, Rambler sales soared 120.9% over the June 1956 sales figure. Not only is consumer reaction heartwarming to AMC, but with 522 dealers having been franchised since Jan. 1, Rambler's dealer sales force now tops 2,200. Behind these otherwise cold statistics stands radio. Although AMC rates among the low men on the Detroit advertising totem pole, with a total 1956 advertising expenditure of but $14.5 million (a considerable comedown from the 1955 budget of $18 million), and although it has leaned heavily on television the past few years via its participating sponsorship of ABCTV's Disneyland (from the 1954-55 season through this past summer) , radio is in for the Cinderella treatment. Reason: network tv sponsorship has been dropped — with tv now limited to spot — and the radio budget, roughly $570,000, is about to be doubled. Notes Mr. Brogan: ". . . the immense size of our competitors' budgets — the sheer weight of their advertising — makes it doubly important for us to be able to take advantage immediately of every such new sales opportunity." For Rambler, a compact, economical auto with "big car capacity," most of its radio allocations have gone into NBC Radio's Monitor. On the NBC weekend radio service program since the spring of 1956 — actually it had tested or made sporadic use of Monitor back in 1955, thus was the program series' first auto sponsor — Rambler originally spent an average of $5,000 a weekend for a 5-6 week period, today places 20 spots a weekend (major-minor position with Plough Inc.) and has upped its weekend expenditures to $12,000 (rate card figures). For the present cycle, Rambler has signed for four 13-week contracts, last year purchased approximately $500,000 worth of NBC Radio time. With Rambler officials refusing to specify radio allocations, and with PIB figures not covering radio expenditures, it is practically impossible to gauge the amount of spot purchasing — a matter that is complicated further still by the fact that some 600 Rambler dealers have bought a considerable amount of spot on their own, using co-op funds (expected to be eliminated) as well as Geyer-produced transcriptions. These dealers, especially in the large cities such as Detroit and San Francisco, have bought — and are buying — local schedules adjacent to the company spot announcements on the newscasts. How has Rambler used radio to its best advantage? According to Mr. Brogan, Rambler has cashed in on radio's "wonderful capacity" of transmitting humor by em ploying the shocking, bombastic "Old Philosopher" pitch that could not help but attract the motorist's attention. Opening with the melancholy strain of an accordion playing "Beautiful Dreamer," Eddie Lawrence lugubriously spoofed the big car craze by asking: "Hey there, friend. You say you bought a car so bulky and long you need a fireman up in back to turn the rear wheels? And when you park, you have to put money in two meters? And the cops keep wavin' you over to the truck line? And everytime you go by a bus stop, the crowds scream for you to stop? Is that what's troubling you, Bunky?" Thus, having set the listener up for the kill, Mr. Lawrence, accompanied by crashing cymbals, would tell him to "go Rambler." He did. Then, too, Rambler has taken advantage of Monitor's flexible, on-the-spot reporting techniques by airing the June 23-24, 1956 Rambler "cross country" economy gas run which, though in essence a commercial, got the "editorial news feature" treatment [Advertisers & Agencies, July 9, 1956]. Another indication of how Monitor worked for AMC was the on-air weekend promotion of the mile-o-dial, a free cardboard gadget which allowed a motorist to figure out the number of miles per gallon he received from his present car (obviously designed to disenchant the driver with his then-present model). Plugged on Monitor no more than 10 times, a great many Rambler dealers claimed to have had their supplies completely exhausted by the next Monday morning. Network radio has to date accounted for approximately 8% of Rambler's overall budget, but to Mr. Brogan, it's been worth its sound in gold. Neither agency nor client would divulge the exact amount of Rambler's budget. The larger share of AMC appropriations go to the Kelvinator and Leonard home appliance divisions (print) as well as international advertising. AMC's nonauto divisions also shared billboard space on the Disneyland program. Mr. Brogan said last week that his dealer force has had no trouble at all disposing of 1957 rolling stock by Sept. 30 — thanks to a large degree to radio. Among the facets of radio he likes particularly: (1) low cost merchandising on a national level, (2) the opportunity of gaining sales message frequency, (3) extra product identification through opening and closing billboards, (4) adaptability to last minute changes and insertions, (5) prestige, particularly when sponsoring a show like Monitor which he describes as "a desired and valuable news service." "We feel," he declared, "that the flattering public reaction to our approach has resulted in substantial good will for the company— and while this is intangible at the box office, so to speak — good will is extremely potent as we launch the 1958 Rambler." With network tv just about out of the Rambler picture for the balance of the year (it spent $724,412 of its half-year — calendar — budget of $1.5 million up to June 30, all of it on Disneyland), Rambler will make Page 36 • October 14, 1957 Broadcasting