Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1959)

west, South and Southwest. Local Competition • The popularpriced beer field, Mr. Reisinger related, accounts for 80% of the total beer market. The company realizes that to compete effectively with more than 200 local brewers for their share of a relatively static market, Anheuser Busch needs a product with popular appeal as well as a strong marketing plan. The company created Busch Bavarian, described as a light, Bavariantype beer (in contrast with Budweiser, a premium product that is darker and tart). The copy theme, developed by Gardner Adv., was designed to project an image of "fun-loving, romantic Bavaria." Copy on radio and tv and in the printed media allude to the "cool, snow-covered mountains" of Bavaria, and describe the beer, for example, as "clear and bright as mountain air." But care is taken to discourage any notion that Busch Bavarian is imported. Spot television is used largely in prime evening time, as well as participations in NBC-TV's regional coverage of major league baseball and basketball games. On radio the beer is promoted extensively on St. Louis Cardinal broadcasts on a regional network of 80 stations. Bigger Expenditures • Busch Bavarian's investment in television has been a steadily growing one, but Mr. Reisinger declined to discuss expenditures. TvB compilations (based on TvB-Rorabaugh figures) show that Busch Bavarian spent $365,000 in 1956; $555,000 in 1957; $725,000 in 1958 and, predicted on its share of Anheuser-Busch's budget of about $3.6 million in 1959, should reach the $900,000 level this year. Mr. Reisinger indicates strongly Bavarian Busch's future advertising approach when he discusses the social and economic shifts in this fluid society, and then says: "Most important of all has been the growth of a new medium ideally structured to serve this huge universal American market. While we utilize all media in our advertising approach, we consider television our primary medium. ... In fact, it is the key to our entire marketing concept." How to buy rug ads Department store buyers of floor coverings were counseled on how to use television last week by Louis Sirota of the retail sales department, Television Bureau of Advertising. Use tv weekly the year-around, coupled with saturation spot schedules, he told the buyers at an Associated Merchandising Corp. meeting Dec. 16. Tv should get at least 20% of the department's annual budget, he said. 26 (BROADCAST ADVERTISING) MILITANT RADIO Will fight to guard p rogr ess — S wee n ey Radio will fight any charges against it that may ensue from current and future publicity emanating from federal probes. Agency timebuyers can expect tighter broadcast control over both editorial material and advertising broadcast on stations. Radio business can expect some stimulants in the year ahead. One of these is the Radio Advertising Bureau's "On Target" type of study that sets forth a "radio pattern" that advertisers can employ "to reach the known buyer of a commodity rather than just a listener of a certain generic type." This late1959 look at the sound medium comes from Kevin Sweeney, RAB president, who was the featured speaker last week at a Radio & Television Executives Society luncheon in New York. Supports FCC • Mr. Sweeney urged that radio defend FCC, "which far from being the worst regulatory body in the government — as some of the Washington pundits have been asserting — is at least the equal and in some respects far better than the Washington regulatory bodies who regulate the airlines, the power companies, etc." Mr. Sweeney deplored what he said was tv's failure in not defending itself "more aggressively." He reiterated that tv's problems are not related to radio ("we are not Siamese twins"), charged that little has been proved about radio's alleged misconduct and that newspapers have exaggerated current revelations beyond proportion. As to tighter control over commercial content, Mr. Sweeney said: "Broadcasters, both radio and television, are going to be super-critical of product claims and be even more alert than they have been to serving the public first and the advertiser second. It's For Real • "The broadcasters know that the investigations are for real and that tremendous damage can be done to their position because even the slightest blunder is going to be magnified into something slightly worse than cannibalism by some headline-hunters." As to radio's business: It has a momentum (both in network and in spot) going into 1960 that it's lacked up to now — "It should play some mighty pretty music on the cash register in the 1960's." His reasons for a "banner decade" for radio in the 1960's: • Set sales are skyrocketing, some 16 million radio sets will be sold in 1959, a new set for one out of every three U.S. households; as of now there are not enough new radios "to go around." • Listening is climbing in "almost every time segment by any measurement that includes all sets." More hours are spent listening and by more people and households. • Summer listening is ahead of tv in terms of adults reached during a 24hour day. It was shown (by Sindlinger & Co.) that in the past summer radio dominated in this area for eight straight weeks as compared to only one week's supremacy in the summer of 1958. • New radio studies, which as in RAB's "On Target" research, are targeting listeners and combining the time periods more scientifically to reach the people who buy the product advertised. PRINT MEDIA NEXT? All advertising facing hazard, Cash asserts "Collective action" by and "common standards" for all advertising were seen last week by Norman E. Cash, president of TvB, as the sensible approach to the problems besetting television and advertising generally. Introducing the New York showing of TvB's latest large-screen presentation on the importance of (1) advertising and (2) television advertising, Mr. Cash also warned that television could, if it felt it had to, "expose" flagrant flaws in print media. He said: "The time is rapidly approaching— in fact may already be here — when all media and advertisers will have to act in unison for the common good of advertising itself. Such a suggestion would have been deemed ridiculous a few short months ago. "But in view of the concerted efforts now taking place to discredit advertising as a whole, print media as well as broadcasting may soon be forced to form a common front. "If there are any doubters, I suggest only that you read the recent stories which relate the problems of various advertisers who use print as well as broadcast media. Yes, all advertising is under attack and, perhaps, only through collective action will all advertising be able to face the situation. We are, in fact, one industry — advertising. I submit that we, therefore, should have common standards. "Television, as the leading national advertising medium — as it has been for the past five years — I hope will continue to deserve this leadership." Some 1,600 advertisers, agency and media people were on hand for the New York showing of the new presentation Wednesday morning at the Waldorf-Astoria. BROADCASTING, December 21, 1959