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12/22/36
GRUNOW CAMPAIGN ARDS 4000 DEALERS
Cleverly directed sales and advertising strategy, interwoven with a vigorous newspaper campaign and supplemented later by magazines, has not only brought William Grunow, of Chicago, head of the General Household Company, veteran radio and refrigerator manufacturer out of receivership within less than a year, but has rebuilt his shattered eealer organization.
Operations for the fiscal year show this. They were broken down into two periods Aug. 1, 1935, to Nov. 19, 1935, prior to a petition for reorganizat ion under 77-B of the amended bankruptcy law, and from Nov. 20, 1935, to July 31, 1936, when the company operated under court jurisdiction. In the first period a net loss of $450,000 occurred, and in the second there was a net profit of $93,000.
When interviewed by the Editor & Publisher, Tod Peed, Advertising Manager of General Household, said, that due to the usual timidity caused by a receivership, dealers had politely withdrawn from the Grunow line.
"General Household’s problem was to build a closelyknit dealer organization throughout the country in the shortest time possible", said Mr. Reed. "We were faced with the need of regaining dealer confidence in our product and obtaining sales volume in the field. In June we introduced what we called our ’smoke-screen’ line of radio receiving sets. This line was look¬ ed upon by our competitors as not particularly startling and, consequently, nothing to worry about. In August we scored a 'beat' by coming out with our 12tube Teledial, retailing at $99.95 and our 11-tube set for $69.95, two months after the industry had committed itself fully as to models and prices.
Both of these sets were immediate smash hits and caused dealers to become Grunow-conscious again. "
Mr. Peed revealed that from June until December,
General Household spent approximately $500,000 in advertising, including space in all media and display material. Of this amount, the bulk has gone into newspapers, both for the introduc¬ tory campaign to obtain dealers and in the past month’s cooper¬ ative series. Magazine advertising has totaled about $62,000 to date, he said.
According to Mr. Reed, Grunow is now manufactur¬
ing 2,000 radio sets daily. None are stored. All are packed at the end of the assembly line and shipped directly to distribu¬ tors throughout the United States.
Previously, Grunow manufactured 30 different models but today production is concentrated on four models, including an 11tube set, two 12tube sets and a 15tube set, the last three having automatic tuning. This is accomplished without sacrific¬ ing employees' hours or wages. The company’s Marion, Ind. , plant is running on three eight-hour shifts.
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