Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

POWER comes via boat to Angorum, a New Guinea town where everything vital is Delco-powered. UNLOADING of the Delco batteries is supervised by Peter England, who runs the local trading store. THE medical officer, Dr. Phelps, needs Delco power to keep his hospital running, giving medical service to the town. RADIO, battery-powered, is Angorum' s only HUNTER Tom Davidson uses battery THE commercial ends with a reminder that means of communications with the rest of powered lamps on night hunts to keep the Delco can give the viewer the same peak the world. crocodiles under control. performance. DELCO TAKES TO HIGH ADVENTURE Native: "Campbell-Ewald, I presume " Account executive: "Of course " This bit of dialogue might well have taken place during rehearsals for a 3-minute commercial. The place: Angorum, New Guinea; the cast, one account executive, CampbellEwald variety, local residents, a location crew of 38 and unnumbered natives. The occasion: filming of the Delco batteries commercial for the premiere last Tuesday of the High Adventure series on CBS-TV. High adventure extended from the production of the show to the filming of the commercials. Campbell-Ewald, agency for Delco Div. of General Motors Corp., wanted commercials as realistic and adventureflavored as the show itself. So, while host Lowell Thomas filmed an excursion through the wilds of New Guinea, Campbell-Ewald shot the Delco story in a New Guinea town dependent on batteries for electric power. C-E Account Executive Donald Kraatz traded grey flannel for khaki shorts and traveled some 10,000 miles from his Detroit office to supervise filming of the commercial. Shooting took a week in Angorum. The same camera crew that worked on the High Adventure story was employed. Residents of New Angorum, used as the cast, added realism to the commercial, which showed their use of Delco power in everything from running the local hospital to providing light for an evening crocodile hunt (see above). Plans are scheduled for a location commercial for each of the six High Adventure shows to come. For the Dec. 23 show, the commercial crew goes to the Arctic. On the future itinerary: Madagascar, Timbuktu, Morocco, Nepal and the Australian bush country. in the home, where they are placed, numbers of portables, transistors, automobile radios, etc. It seems to me this would be well worth the extra money and effort." He also proposed — crediting the idea to Harper Carraine, CBS Radio director of research — that warranty cards on new radio and tv sets be used to gather industry information. "Why," he asked, "couldn't ARF contact the radio manufacturers, or have RETMA [now Electronic Industries Assn.] or NARTB make the contacts, to get a continuing analysis of the warranty cards . . .? "The usual warranty card includes questions as to who made the purchase, whether it was bought for oneself or received as a gift, how many radios are owned, what kind, etc. If the industry got behind such an analysis we could, in all probability, include certain other questions which would be of Broadcasting mutual interest. And, incidentally, the same data would be available for fm and tv. Obviously, secrets such as who the manufacturers are, or their individual names, could be eliminated from the finished reports." Mr. McCabe, whose firm is in both radio and television, had six questions whose answers, he said, would permit more meaningful use of radio: 1. How do radio and tv compare in impact? If it is true that tv's impact is greater, than how many radio minutes are needed to equal the impact of one tv minute? 2. What frequency of commercials is necessary to make radio advertising effective? At what point does the advertiser reach the point of diminishing return? 3. Are participations as effective as sponsorship of full segments? 4. The imagery transfer concept assumes, he felt, that radio is part of "a media mix" rather than a medium standing by itself. If that is correct, does radio have a serious limitation as an exclusive medium? If it is effective as an exclusive medium, what products can benefit more from its use — the new, the relatively new, or the established? (Later he said he had little concern about radio's ability to introduce new products, but was more concerned about its ability, when used exclusively or almost exclusively, with established products.) 5. It is hard, he said, to merchandise radio properly, on the basis of present research. Can research be developed in this connection to show radio in its proper relationship to other media? 6. Advertisers are concerned about overcommercialization of radio in peak listening periods, he asserted. Has this commercialization watered down the effectiveness of November 18, 1957 • Page 35