Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

ADVERTISERS 8 AGENCIES continued LESTOIL RIDES TV INTO 'BIGTIME' • Eskenasy tells ANA how detergent used video to expand How a $300-a-week test was parlayed into a $4 million-a-year investment in television was detailed to the Assn. of National Advertisers last week by I. L. Eskenasy, vice president of Adell Chemical Co., whose Lestoil liquid detergent was the beneficiary of the tv-only campaign. It was a "last-ditch attempt," Mr. Eskenasy said, when Adell decided four years ago ■ — after eight years of "trial and error" — to put everything into television in its effort to establish Lestoil in the retail market (it was already set in the industrial field) . "We contracted for 30 one-minute commercials per week on one tv station for a full year," he reported. "We even obtained a credit assurance at the bank ... for financing during this period if needed. . . . "We purchased many spots — the least expensive times — but many of them. . . . Results were sufficiently encouraging for us to purchase a similar tv saturation campaign on another station within three months and still two more stations within the next three months. "One year after we began the tv saturation campaign, we entered a completely new market. The results were more spectacular and sales increased rapidly there. We then continued from market to market in New England on this tv saturation basis and surrounded our first major city — Boston. "Within several months the demand for Lestoil in Boston warranted the big step of signing up for similar saturation spot campaigns on both Boston tv stations. From there we entered market by market into new areas outside New England. Results from initial areas by this time snowballed Lestoil sales into the No. 1 selling all-purpose detergent in those areas where it was advertised. From $300 to $90,000 "We began our tv campaign four years ago with an expenditure of $300 per week on one station. Today we are spending $90,000 each week on a total of 90 stations— better than $4 million per year on one medium only — television — and then in only a limited portion of the U. S., since our current distribution covers only the Northeast. If this same rate of expenditure were extrapolated throughout the remainder of the U. S., we would be spending $10 million a year on one product. We have attained the No. 33 position on the list of top tv advertisers." « Mr. Eskenasy said Adell works through a house agency, Jackson Assoc., which is "the same as any other agency except that they are close by when needed," so that the whole process of advertising "is greatly expedited." By now, he said, "our entry into a market is almost down to a scientific formula. We know exactly how long it will take to 'crack' a market, given a set number of tv commercials per week in that market. With 'x' number of tv spots per week, we do 'y' dollar sales volume after a certain length of time. If we double 'x,' 'y' likewise increases proportionately. "For example, we doubled our number of commercials in Maine after advertising there for a two-year period. Our sales more than doubled soon thereafter. Of course, there's a point of diminishing returns — but we do use up to 75 one-minute commercials per week in single cities to excellent advantage." Mr. Eskenasy was one of five advertisers on a Tuesday morning ANA panel on "Our Best Campaign — and Why." J. R. Barlow, manager of product advertising for Chrysler Corp., gave an insight into the decision to give television a substantial role in Chrysler's "forward look" campaign. As part of the move to throw off the "label of conservatism" that had been hung on Chrysler in the public mind, he said, Chrysler and its agency, McCann-Erickson, set out to obtain for the car maker "a major franchise in the one medium it had hitherto handled with great conservatism — television. It was imperative that we have the double approach of black-and-white and color print and television. And in the latter we needed to attain major position with great speed and effectiveness." He said they chose Bill Lundigan as program host after "a systematic search for a young man with whom most Americans could come to feel at home," and picked Climax as the program "after much study of types of programs that could be counted on to produce large audiences." Mr. Barlow continued: "We wanted an investment — not a gamble. Shower of Stars was [added] ... on a monthly, or 10 times a year schedule, to reach for that part of the audience that won't sit still for a drama and also to capitalize on any values that might develop from the birth of color tv." From 87 stations in 1954-55, he said, Chrysler's CBS-TV lineup for Climax and Shower was extended first to 136 stations and then this year, to 176. And for its 1958 models "we have again done the pre-selling job in all four media — magazines, newspapers, television and spot radio. The same message is used in all media for a week to constantly impress the product superiority and advanced design of our new cars." Success? Mr. Barlow reported: "Since 1954 Chrysler Corp.'s share of market has expanded by an eye-opening 50%. Our current share of market is about 20% and demand for our products seems to be growing. Plymouth has regained its traditional third-place position, and the Imperial has turned in the astounding record of tripling its sales of a year ago. . . ." Reginald L. Johnson, vice president and director of advertising, Johns-Manville Corp., said his company decided lg^t June to switch to national magazines because "our advertising dollars would not go far enough" to continue sponsorship of its program on a full-network basis. But he had no regrets about some 15 years' use of the broadcast media on a steady basis. He pointed out that for 12 years JohnsManville sponsored Bill Henry and the News, a five-minute program, for five nights a week "and feels the investment was well worth while." Then the company switched to tv, co-sponsoring Meet the Press for some 2V2 years and, with it, was able to do "a good job of advertising our major products and giving the public a general picture of our diversified operations." Other speakers on the successful-campaign panel included George W. Head, National Cash Register Co., and Robert E. Davis, Imperial Paper & Color Corp. CUNNINGHAM URGES ANA TO RESCUE TV • Says it's 'boring/ 'imitative1 • Asks 'more refreshing' programs A warning that "a most important advertising tool" — television — may be "in danger of being blunted and dulled" was laid before the 48th annual meeting of the Assn. of National Advertisers last week. John P. Cunningham, president of Cunningham & Walsh, sounded the warning and called upon both advertisers and agencies to encourage the development of "more refreshing entertainment" and to "look beyond the ratings always to maintain television as a well-rounded medium so that it may fulfill its destiny." He said television's strength is being sapped by what he called the "boredom factor" — the incidence of viewers who find programs trite and boring — -and that boredom is being compounded by imitation which "has lately become alarmingly intensified." Quiz and audience participation shows, he noted, have reached the "almost unbelievable" total of 64 per week, while westerns have reached the point — 15 a week — where "it looks as if the living rooms of America will become noxious this fall with the smell of smoking guns." Variety programs conducted by singers "have reached a record high this fall with 14 shows per week." Mr. Cunningham told the advertisers that "the time has come when we advertising men have an absolute obligation not to add another singer to the herd or another quiz show to the cluster or another western to the swarm unless it is a better one — a matter of creativity. "I'm brash enough to say that anybody who buys another western, unless it is a marked creative departure from the pattern (as $64,000 Question was in the quiz field MR. CUNNINGHAM Page 32 • November 4, 1957 Broadcasting