Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1958)

ADVERTISERS 8 AGENCIES continued ADROIT USE OF MEDIA, RESEARCH GETS BEVERAGE CONVERTS FOR TEA • Tea Council makes dramatic strides in seven years • Burnett puts most of $2.5 million budget in radio-tv \ n2.5 million annual promotion budget ($2 million of it spent in radio-tv advertising), a hard-hitting copy theme and a $1.5 million research investment over seven years have helped transform tea from an occasional invalid's drink trailing coffee 20-to-l into a "hefty, hot and hearty" brew that last year racked up a U. S. consumption in excess ot 30 billion cups — now trailing coffee only 3-to-l. Responsible for this slightly phenomenal upsurge is the Tea Council of the U. S. A., its agency, Leo Burnett Co. — and broadcast advertising. While its budget may not be exceptionally large by some measures — the unusual aspect of the Tea Council account is twofold: (a) it is the only international promotion "partnership" (U. S., Ceylon, India and Indonesia) that purchases an impressive proportion of tv-radio time; (b) it is perhaps one of the most thoroughly-researched accounts in advertising today, a fact described by a Burnett man as "gratifying . . . since you know that the client is backing all of your efforts with more than just interest: he's put his cash on the line . . ." The council has just hit midway in its 1957-58 tv-radio push (the tv phase, accounting for SI. 5 million, ran from Oct. 15-Feb. 17 in 29 markets; the radio push on behalf of iced tea begins in May). It considers the past few years of concentrated selling as one of "learning the hard way." Its latest lesson: To bolster your buying audience, you have to go after the other fellow's customers since tea drinkers aren't born, they're converted. The other fellow: coffee and other beverages. Since last fall, the council's hot tea ads on tv have been mincing few pictures. Though the word coffee is never mentioned, the intent behind the visual image of a dissatisfied drinker pushing away a cup of black brew is obvious. Just as obvious is the fact that the council's efforts have been hitting home. Late last fall, several member firms of the National Coffee Assn.. meeting in Boca Raton. Fla.. decried the Tea Council's "flagrant" attacks and hinted darkly at "counter-measures." but cooler heads prevailed. The NCA's official stand: The council is wasting its time and money by spending 709c of its tv budget tearing down coffee instead of building up tea. But the Tea Council (as well as a number of subscribing tea packers) feel that it is doing no such thing, and stoutly maintain that it's not the pure coffee drinkers it is after but the people who have already quit coffee or who made the switch to such caffeine-free drinks as Ovaltine, Postum, Decaf and Sanka — the latter placing third (behind Maxwell House and Nescafe) among the instant brews To get the most out of the tea industry's backseat position in ad expenditures ($15 million annually — excluding the council's $2.5 million — as against coffee's $65 million, beer's $90 million and soft drinks' $100 million), the council's task seemed relatively hard: to make up in frequency what its drive lacked in impact and to sell Americans on two little words, "availability" and ''acceptability." A Tea Council official put it this way: "We had to advertise a drink nobody wanted." In 1946, per capita U. S. tea consumption had dropped to one third of what it was in 1900. The "coffee break" and its implied masculinity had made a farce out of what was once "teatime." Motivational researcher Dr. Ernest Dichter, called in by the Council two years after its inception in 1949 (then affiliated with London's International Tea Market Expansion Board), found, according TV TEA TEASERS: . . . Campaign Theme . . . Product appeal . . . Enjoyment, relaxation to Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders, "that the tea producers not only had fallen into a hole but were busily digging the hole deeper in their sales appeals." The ads played heavilj on the theme that tea was something one drank before taking to bed with a cold. Tea concluded Dr. Dichter, seemed to be for sissies and Chinese and he recommended, in the first of a series of Tea Council surveys, that Burnett put some muscle into the tea image. It did just that by transforming a tea pot into a man's muscle, by coining the cadence "make it hefty, hot and hearty" and unveiling the now-famous slogan. "Take tea and see." With the advent of 1952 came not only the council's first use of tv but also an entirely new council. The government of India withdrew its support from ITMEB. and together with Indonesia and Ceylon, joined in partnership with the American council. For each $5 contributed by U. S. packers e.g., McCormick & Co., Tetley, Seeman Bros.. Salada-Shirriff-Horsey Inc., Thomas J. Lipton Co., the foreign tea growers would toss in $8 with their pro-rata share based not on U. S. sales, but on a three-year average of world-wide exports. Robert Smallwood. Lipton board chairman, was named chairman of the council a fortnight ago, reelected for his sixth consecutive term. Armed with Dr. Dichter's advice, the council — with $175,000 set aside for media, production and research — initially invaded Syracuse, N. Y., and placed 18 spots weekly on WH EN-TV and WSYR-TV from October 1952 through the following March. Then it sent an Elmo Roper poll task force to query 4,000 tea-drinking Syracusans on why they drank tea. For the remainder of 1953 and all of 1954. the council deliberated test results and meanwhile placed its small campaign in other media. But in 1954, it bought a 52week tv schedule in New York. Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Washington. Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Providence. Later it added 1 9 markets (mostly South and West) to supplement the iced tea push, for a total tv expenditure of $1.5 million. Since then, the "basic lineup" has been altered somewhat. San Francisco was dropped for iced tea because of its mean year-round temperature of 57 degrees: added were Seattle. Portland, New Haven, Syracuse, Buffalo and Schenectady — all for hot and iced tea. Since then, too, the tea council has abandoned 52-week schedules for two flights annually — one running during the four fall-winter months, the other during the three late spring-summer months. "We sacrificed concentration for frequency discounts." a council official declares ruefully of the 52-week formula. "We know better now." For iced tea campaigning. Burnett turned to radio. In the spring of 1955. Dr. Dichter completed report No. 2 for the council and concluded that Burnett's tv spots — showing people suffering from summer heat turning to iced tea — were connoting the unpleasant aspects of summertime. He suggested that the agency substitute "the benign face of summer" by stressing the phrase "fun" Page 50 • March 3, J 958 Broadcasting