Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1958)

ADVERTISERS & AGENCIES continued lions can be answered by mere counting. Some require individual resumes. Questions regarding Management also are varied in type and. although many of them arc concentrated in a separate section, many more are interspersed throughout the list. Obviously, we need to know the bare facts of each agency's size and structure, since the nature of our problems precludes consideration of even a superlative one-man or very small agency. Beyond that, however, we need to be able to compare the organizational plan of one agency with another in order to appraise their own evaluation of advertising's various phases. An agency, for instance, which has a 60-man copy staff and a one-boy research department (w ith the word "department" in quotes) announces its own convictions about research in a very plain way. Methods, as a category of questions, runs throughout the questionnaire. We specifically ask how the agency handles research, market research, marketing, merchandising and media. We ask for samples and examples of projects done in many of these areas. We ask for opinions on the importance and limitations of these agency functions. We ask for an expression of attitude toward such diverse items as tv copy testing, commercials currently on the air — regardless of which client or agency produced them— and for an expression of the abilities of tv production companies. Frankly, some of these questions are deliberately loose, and we are getting loose, free-and-easy answers. That's what we want, because we believe we can get and can sensibly evaluate the thinking that goes into that kind of answer. The fourth broad category is Money, and the questions pertaining to it are designed primarily to provide an understanding, in advance, of how each agency charges — and for what. As you know there is considerable variation in agency practices in this area. It is unlikely that our final selection will be greatly influenced by any agency's billing practice on storyboards, comprehensive layouts or display suggestions, but we are using the questionnaire to learn of any truly unusual policies which might affect our decision. As a tool for measuring prospective agencies, this section of the questionnaire is likely to be the least important of any. In the beginning I emphasized the fact that what we really are looking for in a new agency is brains — capital B-R-A-I-N-S — experienced, skilled, brilliant, mature, creative brains available and applicable by that new agency to every phase of our large, complex and vital advertising problems. Each completed questionnaire will contain a full revelation of that agency's brains, quantitatively and qualitatively, in a way that is measurable alone or in comparison with other questionnaires. You will be interested to know that 33 agencies have solicited our account and that we furnished each with a questionnaire. As rapidly as we can, we are completing our studies of the replies with the intention of narrowing the field to the best qualified six, through the use of a standardized score sheet or evaluation chart on which each of Page 42 • May 12, 1958 us will rank each agency. At present, we believe that the selection ol six agencies for further and final investigation will give us a good cross-section of top-rank agencies, although the number might prove to be five or seven instead. We will then visit the offices of these agencies, meet their staffs, examine their facilities and hold preliminary discussions. Later we would invite presentations. At our insistence, these presentations would be non-specific and non-speculative. They would contain absolutely no speculative ads or campaigns. As I have tried to emphasize throughout this talk, what we are looking for in a new agency is thinking. We are not looking for a single thought, a single solution to a single current problem. Putting it bluntly, we believe that any agency — large or small, great or indifferent — might come up with a single good ad or even a single good campaign. But our products are many and our marketing problems and objectives are equally numerous. We are looking for thinking — for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. C. Knox Massey & Assoc. Formed From Harvey-Massengale Branch C. Knox Massey & Assoc. has announced its establishment in Durham, N. C, as an advertising and marketing agency, replacing the Durham office of Harvey-Massengale Co., Atlanta, Ga. Principals and key personnel of the new firm: C. Knox Massey, president-treasurer; John L. Moorhead, vice president; William E. Stauber, vice president; W. D. Car michael III, account executive; George Watts Fowler, art and production director, and C. Knox Massey Jr., secretary-assistant treasurer. All except Mr. Massey Jr. were with the H-M Durham office. Former Durham area clients of the Harvcv-Massengale Co. are to be served by the new firm, it has been announced. They include the B.C. Remedy Co. and 25 others. Massey & Assoc. will expand personnel and activities. H-M has discontinued its Durham branch, the Massey firm reports. Ad Council's Confidence Push Outlined in Washington Report Advertising media have pledged large amounts of time, facilities and space to the Advertising Council's new confidence-building program, according to Charles G. Mortimer, president of General Foods Corp. and co-chairman of the council's industries advisory committee. The plan to allay anxiety and promote confidence was explained Tuesday at the council's annual conference with high government officials, held in Washington and addressed by President Eisenhower. Marion Harper Jr., president of McCannErickson, task agency for the campaign, said every major radio and tv network will promote the campaign on sustaining shows and nearly every major radio and tv advertiser will carry the message in sponsored time. He added that confident businessmen and confident consumers can quicken the return to prosperity. The theme of the campaign is "Your future is great in a growing America." BEST AGENCY PROGNOSTICATORS in the 1958 Navigation Jackpot of WDSMAM-TV Duluth, Minn., collected their rewards last Wednesday. Stations annually stage competition in which agency people attempt to guess the arrival time of the first ship through the Duluth ship canal to officially open the navigation season at the head of the Great Lakes. First and second prizes of $100 and $50 are given winners in New York, Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis. Left to right: Samuel Henry, Peters, Griffin, Woodward radio account executive; Walter I. Teitz and Mary I. O'Connor, both of Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample and New York winner and runnerup, respectively; Thomas Tilson, PGW television account executive, and Lloyd Griffin, PGW vice president and director of tv. Broadcasting