Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1959)

free rein to hire competent personnel with merchandising experience on the retail level. Sell the station image Keeping the station image is a dayto-day problem, R. C. (Jake) Embry, manager, WITH Baltimore, told a Monday panel on "How to Create a Station Image." Also taking part was Arthur C. Schofield, assistant to the president, Peoples Broadcasting Co. Mr. Embry said two station images are involved: one to listeners, the other to advertisers and agencies. The image must be sold "just like any product," he said. The station must achieve complete agreement internally on the image it wishes to project through its program format and service, he said. Then it must be sold to all the staff and "100% cooperation" obtained. Helpful to promoting the image is a station trademark or slogan, he said. Then stations must practice what they preach and advertise their product on a continuous 52-week basis in the trade papers, local papers and other media as well as on the air. "Consistency over 52 weeks of the year is paramount," Mr. Embry said. Other factors bearing significantly on the station image, Mr. Embry said, include: quality of advertising, billing and accounting accuracy, rate structure ("nothing should be as inviolate as your rates"), participation in community activities ("every member of the staff should be active in some local organization"), salesmen ("they should be well trained, make a good appearance, be honest, command respect") and atmosphere of civic interest ("all stations should editorialize"). What's in a Name? • Mr. Schofield didn't like the word "image." To him it connoted something fabricated. He felt rather that it is the station "name" or reputation which is important. "You seldom can change the original," he said, "you can only translate it." But promotion does enter into the function of translation, he asserted. Mr. Schofield offered these "don'ts" to help do an effective promotion job: don't rush ("don't go to sleep either"); don't always have to be first; don't be afraid to make a mistake, and don't think what you do has to be the biggest ("but what you do do must be important"). His big "do": "Do make it personal. There is no such thing as mass. Everything important that ever happened to anyone is personal." Spend enough to count How to improve trade paper advertising was explored by a Monday after 78 (THE MEDIA) Parting of the ways KMOX-AM St. Louis and KMOX-TV St. Louis are CBSowned stations. But the sister stations apparently are "thinking men" outlets — they make up their own minds. Last Monday (Nov. 2) KMOX-TV aired an editorial, urging acceptance of the St. Louis Metropolitan District Plan Issue which went before voters on Election Day. On the same evening KMOX broadcast an editorial asking citizens to vote against the proposal. noon panel comprising R. David Kimble, senior account executive for NBC at Grey Adv., New York, and Henry J. Kaufman, president, Henry J. Kaufman Assoc., Washington. Mr. Kimble told stations they must either spend enough for trade advertising to do the job "or forget it." The reason for trade ads is to achieve "memorability," he explained. It is not impulse motivation as in the case of many consumer products, he said. Mr. Kimble's other key factors for trade advertising success: frequency; run big enough ads to tell the story; have a story to tell, and, "make good ads." He said a recent study shows program information is mostly desired in the ads by agency timebuyers with success stories and qualitative audience data following in preference. Size and space are important in trade ads, Mr. Kimble said, while color, bleed and illustration or good use of type are enhancing factors. Ads should make a single point, he said, and in view of their agency audience they should have a certain amount of sophistication. Set the Example • Mr. Kaufman found broadcasters fail to budget and plan their own advertising as efficiently and thoroughly as they expect sponsors to do on their radio and tv stations. Yet, he said, FCC's reports on market billings disclose some "startling inconsistencies" which can only be attributed to the influence of trade advertising. Most national radio-tv billing gravitates to the major metropolitan markets, he observed, while radio, in the smaller markets, is dominated by local billing. "Yet Cedar Rapids' national, non-network radio billing is twice as big as its local billing. This marke sailed Cedar Rapids which is only 171st in national ranking (population) has a national spot radio volume that approximates America's 25th market and is almost double America's 110th market." There are "dozens of cases where small but aggressively promoted markets produce a volume of radio and tv billing unequaled by many larger markets," Mr. Kaufman said. "I wonder how many of you have ever studied similar operations — and evaluated the national trade promotion program responsible for focusing attention on markets and stations no better than yours. I wonder how many of you have fully utilized the knowledge and experience of your stations' representatives, your agencies and your trade paper representatives for the purpose of determining the circumstances under which you might promote your station, your market or both, with some assurance of sucecss." Promote for top spots There is a direct relation between a station's national spot billing and its promotion excellence, H. Preston Peters, president, Peters, Griffin, Woodward Inc., station representatives, told a Wednesday morning panel on "How to Equip Your Representative." He shared the panel with Adam J. Young, president, Adam Young Inc. How good a job the station representative performs depends in large measure on the promotion placed in his hands by the station, Mr. Peters said. The "staples" to be fed to the representative include information and data on the market, programs, coverage and rates. But this must be consistently and periodically freshened. His examples of typical "extra" promotions included "the tallest tower east of the Atlantic ocean, a new studio larger than the Kremlin, the $3 million film package, or a safari to your market or area." Mr. Young told of several case histories in which over-all promotion plans by the stations helped sell radio campaigns and win renewals. The promotion ideas, he said, help to induce advertisers and agencies to test radio in new ways and find new selling patterns. Mr. Young urged station promotion managers to make sure their representative understands the scope and depth of services which the station can provide; to be sure when an order is obtained based upon a promotion plan that it is carried out in every detail, and to report in full detail what has been done when the promotion is over. Suggest self promotion At the revolving round table session Tuesday on audience promotion, led by Robert V. Freeland, KOTV (TV) Tulsa, participants felt stations should give more attention to self-promotion on their own facilities. Over-emphasis on newspaper advertising was criticized, although use of all media was considered desirable in a balanced promotion. BROADCASTING, November 9, 1959