Broadcasting (Apr - June 1960)

Continued from page 30 than a 50% return to its initial inquiry. He said nearly everybody expressed an opinion and that the letters in general contained the following points: ■ Summer rate structures are flexible and the station wants to explain its position. ■ The station doesn’t contemplate a summer rate this season, or a summer card is not “appropriate” to the market served (year-round billing prosperity). ■ A summer rate card may be considered for next year, or in any event, the station has been giving some thought to publishing such a card. It was pointed out that BBDO has two summer season clients which would have a natural bent for seasonal reductions. These are Pepsi-Cola (a new BBDO client) and Schaeffer beer. Same Cost ■ Other agencies which have year-round advertisers brush off summer rate inducements, noting that many of these go hand in hand with a raise of rates in the winter — “it ends up costing about the same.” But the added flexibility intrigues these media people who note that “now we can buy into the networks in winter or in summer.” WABC-TV New York, ABC-TV’s owned station in New York, announced it would not offer a special summer discount plan. Joseph Stamler, vice president and general manager, said there are “built-in” provisions of the regular 7/14 plan that accommodates clients during the lower set circulation period. This takes into account fluctuations of audience circulation from one rate classification to another and from one season to another, he said. The WABC-TV plan is similar to that used by 23 of 25 Blair-Tv stations. In effect, this plan permits advertisers to move into another rate classification on a pre-emptible basis (meaning an advertiser automatically is knocked out of the schedule, within limitations, when another advertiser comes in during the low-rated season on the basis of the higher rate classification). On WABC-TV, advertisers in specific time periods during months of lower circulation have a built-in summer discount plan. By automatically taking in the seasonal factor through audience circulation changes, the advertiser in effect obtains discounts — which in the summer period can range from 30-60% . Mr. Stamler asserted that if more stations around the country followed this rate card procedure, advertisers and agencies would be relieved of the problems they face each summer. Ayer’s Mr. Burrows asserted that the “trend” of some stations setting a lower summer rate was “desirable and constructive”; that a summer rate would “go a long way” in warding off apathy shown by many advertisers toward summer tv; that clients have noted summer plans already announced by stations and have asked the agency “how many stations offer special summer rates.” An Extension ■ While stations cannot do much about viewing drop-off in the summer, Mr. Burrows observed they can do something about the cost. This phrase in his letter was underlined. A summer discount plan, he continued, would be but a seasonal extension of a policy already set in rate cards which provide for different rates for different classes of time periods. N.W. Ayer through summer discounts would help the station by encouraging advertisers to continue or to consider tv in that season and would work for the advertiser by making summer tv more attractive since the “efficiency and cost” of tv’s reach would become a constant year-’round figure. IT’S TV TEA TIME Nestle schedules $2 million campaign The Nestle Co., White Plains, N.Y., announced plans Wednesday (May 18) to spend “more than $2 million” in summer and fall promotion of its new Instant Nestea. Most of the ad money said to be more than was spent in the last three years combined, is allocated to the broadcast media, according to Alistair Semple, general manager of Nestle’s tea and coffee marketing division. The company expects to sell enough Jan Crockett She sells instant tea Instant Nestea to make 3A billion glasses j of iced tea this year. Nestea, via i McCann-Erickson, New York, purchased sponsorship of the daytime j Loretta Young Theatre (Mon.-Fri. " 2:30-3 p.m. EDT), which is seen on j some 130 NBC-TV stations. In addition day and nighttime tv commercials in all major markets throughout the j summer and fall will be spotted in such programs as The Jack Paar Show, Today, Price Is Right, Life of Riley, I Love Lucy, Queen for a Day, December Bride and others. Approximately 80 top markets will be used in the f company’s tv spot campaign. Saturation radio spot campaigns will be launched in key U.S. markets throughout the summer. A few consumer magazines will get a share of the Nestea business but no newspapers will be * used, it was reported. Nestea’s expenditure represents a % significant increase over 1959. Accord j ing to TvB and LNA-BAR figures, j Nestea spent $74,233 in network tv and ,, $232,310 in tv spot. Nestea’s tv spending last year was topped by Lipton, i Tenderleaf and the Tea Council 1 (Broadcasting, May 9). Nestea has signed tv actress and j singing star Jan Crockett to star in a ' series of new Nestea commercials, , which will have various June starting dates across the country. Nestea cur j rently enjoys more than 50% of the instant tea business, Hans J. Wolflis-i berg, president of the Nestle Co., told guests at the Nestea presentation last week in New York. A fast approach to institutional ads General Electric Co., BBDO and tv tape have demonstrated that a news event can be adapted quickly as a tv commercial. The advertiser and agency, with only a 20-hour advance notice, taped the May 1 1 docking of the Triton, nuclear submarine that circled the globe in 84 days. GE designed and developed the sub’s two atomic reactors for the Atomic Energy Commission. In a midtown New York CBS-TV studio the day before, a BBDO unit'i was taping a commercial for future use on The General Electric Theatre, (Sun-: days, 9-9:30 p.m.). It received a call; from GE on the Triton’s imminent docking. In two hours time, the unit was on its way to New London, Conn.,| to meet the Triton. Leased were two mobile video-tape trucks from Sports Network Inc. BBDO writer John Leinbach wrote a script for the three-minute commercial in the early hours ofj the morning at New London. He did so not knowing the precise spots the two tv cameras would be placed. The actual docking of the Triton andj 34 (BROADCAST ADVERTISING) BROADCASTING, May 23, 1960