Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1958)

ADVERTISERS & AGENCIES CONTINUED Give Agencies Voice In Marketing Strategy Advertising agencies apparently are becoming increasing!) conscious of the advertiser's marketing problems and in doing so want to be counted in on marketing plans. The point was emphasized in recent speeches by three advertising executives. A blunt appeal that advertisers "let their agencies do a full job" was made last week by Harold L. McClinton. president of Reach, McClinton & Co.. New York, in an address before the 65th annual meeting of the Canadian Life Insurance Officers Assn. in Quebec. He opined that agencies find it impossible to perform their function when frequently advertisers do not include the agency as "a real part of the marketing team." Mr. McClinton urged that marketing procedures be brought up to date, that effective marketing strategy be emphasized and the company's advertising director be placed on the "first team." He cited Reach, McClinton's relationship with The Prudential Insurance Co. of America as an example of an effective marketing strategy bearing on insurance sales objectives. A Cunningham & Walsh executive. May 22, called on advertising companies to bring their agencies into marketing plans. The agency spokesman was William V. Mulvey, senior vice president, member of the executive committee and of the board. Also speaking at a session of the New York chapter of the American Marketing Assn. was George Frost, vice president and advertising manager of Cannon Mills and chairman of the company's advertising-merchandising-sales committee. Both presented views on how far an agency should go in preparing marketing strategy for its clients. Mr. Mulvey said the agency should be called on for marketing service because it is a "selling weapon to be used" to keep an edge over competitors, and it is economical for the client. Use of agency marketing services would result in more effective advertising and add a perspective (the agency would render "a most unbiased opinion of industry developments" because it is not hampered by internal company pressures). Mr. Mulvey said that "if the advertising agent is going to be held responsible — to the point of being canned by the client — for sales failures, then it is important that he have a voice in every phase of the distributional pattern of that product." Mr. Frost warned advertiser^ that despite the extent of agency marketing aid, it is still the responsibility of the advertiser and not the agency to make the final decision on the overall marketing plan. He said there is need for spelling out in writing the specific areas of marketing responsibility to be assumed by both the agency and the advertiser. Accas Joining Grey Media Staff Gene Accas, vice president in charge of sales development for ABC-TV, has resigned to join Grey Adv., New York, as associate media director, reporting to Larry Page 36 • June 2, 1958 Deckinger, vice president in charge of media for the agency, effective June 14. Mr. Accas has been with ABC since February 1957, and before that was with Television Bureau of Adv. for a year. Prior to that he was with ABC for a number of years and also served with NBC and Foote, Cone & Belding. Weekly Radio Audience Up 8% Over Last Year, Nielsen Finds Rebounding radio business got a new push forward last week. The A. C. Nielsen Co., in a special report for release today (Monday) said radio's weekly audience is up 8% over a year ago. The findings were drawn from a special study, made annually by the Nielsen company. The study showed that during "a typical mid-winter week" this year 89.5% of all U. S. radio homes used their household radio sets. Nielsen said this audience, total ing more than 43.5 million different homes, over 3 million (8%) ahead of the figures for a year ago. A total of 655 million home-hours of radio listening were recorded during the week, according to the study. Listening was distributed during the day as follows: 40% occurred during the morning hours, 6 a.m. to noon; 34% during the afternoon, from noon to 6 p.m.; 21% during the evening, 6 p.m. to midnight, and 5% after midnight. The report found that during a single week more than 24 million homes use their radio during the single hour between 8 and 9 p.m. on weekdays. During the evening, the greatest weekly audience is between 6 and 7 p.m., when more than 20 million different homes tune in across the week. A total of 55% of all in-home listening is done during the weekday (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.), Nielsen reported. Evening listening and listening after midnight account for 26%, while 19% is done during the daytime on weekends. TELLING TIME AND MAKING MONEY Last year WRCA-TV New York decided to add "a new wrinkle to an old look" and, as an experiment, started to sell "electronic time signals" — 10second, early-morning station breaks presenting time of day and a commercial. The experiment's success has prompted a decision to offer the plan to NBC's owned and operated tv stations, more than 100 network affiliates carrying the Today show (Mon.-Fri., 7-9 a.m.) and to other affiliates presenting early-morning local programming. WRCA-TV officials acknowledge the plan is no gold mine, but point out that by June 24, when the first anniversary of the electronic time signal rolls around, the technique will have brought in about $100,000 — an overwhelming portion of which is "found money." As of May 1, income totalling $76,200 had been billed by the station $40,750 from advertisers who had never used WRCA-TV. Peter Affe, director of operations for WRCAAM-TV, suggested the innovation. He felt 10-second station break announcement within Today could be sold as time signal commercials just as was the practice in radio. William Davidson, general manager of WRCA-AMTV, and Max Buck, sales director, agreed. The presentation to agencies and advertisers pointed out that time checks are valuable to working people, the commuter, the housewife and children. It added that these time signal breaks combine a visual and audio announcement of an advertiser's product plus an actual on-camera clock showing the exact time. The cost of WRCA-TV: an electric clock. The time signal consists of that clock adapted to a device for use in a teloptican projector with a card constructed in the same way as any telop. Photographs, art work, hand lettering, hot press and film have been used in presenting the commercial message (see cuts). The upsurge in business can be gauged by a comparison of station-break time sold before the electronic time signal was introduced (10%) and now (80%). A total of 12 spots are available daily on Today. The price to an advertiser is $250 for five station breaks a week, minimum purchase, and $750 for 15 breaks a week, the maximum. Sponsors who have signed up for heavy schedules include Tropicana orange juice (340 spots over 68 weeks), Myomist (260 spots over 52 weeks), Dove soap (130 spots over 26 weeks) and Delta Airlines (435 spots over 41 weeks). The track record of the electronic time signal plan so impressed P. A. (Buddy) Sugg, vice president of NBC owned stations and NBC Spot Sales, that he recommended other NBC tv stations consider it. A presentation outlining W R C A-T V's experience was mailed to affiliated stations last week. Creams while you wash Broadcasting