NAB reports (Mar-Dec 1933)

plete success of our promotional activities. Naturally our merchandising and sales promotion departments which are combined into one under the direction of a former advertising agency official have played a great part in the general promo¬ tion of the station. We do not undertake a listener survey, a dealer canvass, a campaign of bulletin boards, billboards, counter displays or window displaj's without making sure that such promotional material prominently displays the call letters of the station, together with any other pertinent data on station personalities, location, wavelength, etc. I shall not attempt to go into fur¬ ther detail about these forms of paid advertising, which any station can, use if an appropriation is available, except to say in passing that our experience with direct mail and trade paper advertising has brought us recognition and inquiries from the people we were seeking to reach. In newspapers and maga¬ zines we have done very little spending because we have felt that these are generally useful only where the newspapers or magazines take an equal amount of paid space on the station for their own promotional efforts. Many stations have such working arrangements or affiliations with newspapers in their cities. Wherever this situation exists there cannot help but be beneficial results and little expenditure on either part in ob¬ taining additional listeners for the station and additional circulation for the newspaper. More than a year ago we made extensive use of billboards in Cleveland and they did a tremendous job in making the public of Cleveland immediately conscious of the existence of a new station. We are now undertaking a campaign using a full run of the street cars, busses and other public transportation convevane.es in Cleveland tying in with our most prominent spot advertisers. Entirely aside from paid advertising and publicity originat¬ ing from the radio stations is a. field of activity in radio sta¬ tion promotion which is being better developed almost monthly. This is in the use of the broadcasting vehicle itself in buildingup a larger audience and greater interest in local and national programs. These we have briefly catalogued into classifications such as “dial setter” programs, current program reviews, tak¬ ing the listeners behind the scenes, contests and give-aways, broadcasts of public events, etc. Nearly every radio station has done something spectacular along this line, and radio shows, which because of the depression were not so common this year, have also served to bring the public in closer touch with the studio activities through the personal appearance of artists in crystal studios and on stages at such exhibits. The two networks and principal stations of Chicago obtained fine publicity at the two National Conceptions last year by placing big banners over their microphones on the speakers’ platforms and on their broadcasting booths which stood out in bold relief against the mass of humanity gathered to select candidates and platforms. The stations of Cleveland have been most progressive in this particular field and I have had our station participate in a great many conventions, expositions, and sales meetings with attractive booths and entertainment features which would send the visitor away brimful of consciousness of our station in particular and the broadcasting industry in general. Some¬ times, such as in sales meetings and industrial exhibits our activity is only incidental with the main attraction. In others, such as in the Rotary Club’s Fair and Frolic this Spring and in the EKO Theatres Industrial and Business Exposition, our participation has been of a central or dominating character, one which we co-sponsored and cooperated with in a very great degree. We continue to hear about this type of thing months and even years after the event is concluded. It also serves to emphasize the fact that beyond everything else a radio sta¬ tion is a local enterprise serving local civic interests. Each new venture along this line is being closely watched by every enterprising station executive and employee with a view of copying or exceeding the other fellow. We have tried, and in most cases successfully, so many types of individual promotions during certain weeks or on single evenings when we wanted a particularly large audience or when we wanted to put across a certain proposal, that time will not permit me to go into any great detail. I want to single out of the past six months promotions, two semi-commercial activities of the WGAR Broadcasting Company which have been especially worthwhile. One has been a chartered cruise to the Century of Progress which will leave Cleveland on the great ship Seeandbee on Sunday, July 2nd, with a complete boat load of 550 persons anxious for the greatest experience of their lives — a trip on the inland waters to the Fair. This cruise, will be an inex¬ pensive way for aur listeners to see the event of the century. During the two days enroute to the Fair and during the two days and nights returning, they will be entertained royally by a galaxy of the most popular musicians and entertainers of Cleveland and one or two nationally-known network attrac¬ tions. Our own station dance orchestra will provide dance music and a large number of our staff will be on hand to see that every man, woman and child has a good time. This cruise which we devised during the recent black period of the banicing holiday has proven extremely successful and will pay rich dividends in happiness in the lives of our listeners, and I need not add, will prove profitable to the station in the good¬ will it brings as well as the profits from the trip itself whichare already assured. Shortly after the banking situation became acute we took advantage of the talk about various kinds of money, including script, and issued from the station a new form of currency which we termed “WGAR Magic Money.” These certificates are featured on a program broadcast each day at 12:00 o’clock noon and c-an be used by any listener to bid on various worth¬ while articles of merchandise actually auctioned off on the program. These certificates can be obtained from any one of approximately forty outlying Cleveland merchants stores to whom we have issued them in return for a contract for participation in the program and a prize to be auctioned off each week. This program has been at one and the same time an advertising and circulation stimulant. Our listener audience at that particular hour is greater than at any other time of the day because of the fact that these forty merchants have, in connection with their sales, issued more than one million dollars in magic money in the three months that this has been a feature of the station. Some of our most outstanding sales success stories come from the results obtained from this one program by various merchants participating. An electrical refrigerator store on one side of the street sells a refrigerator costing $25 more than practically identical merchandise in a stores across the street because in the former instance the buyers are given $225 in WGAR money. A sale of dresses by a Euclid Avenue retailer resulted in 400 sales in one day and 450 the following week from his participation in this program. A furrier got more than a thousand dollars worth of storage business in two weeks time. Over 10,000 boys entered one store in four days to obtain a free gift with a 25c purchase. I could go on and cite at least 35 or 40 other such experiences but these will serve to be typical. It is, of course, difficult to trace direct results in increased business toward all of these forms of promotion, whether they are paid advertising or publicity. No one can study this field without grasping its magnitude — the millions of dollars and the hours of effort devoted toward the two chief objectives of station promotion which are increasing the size of the audience and increasing the amount of business — without feel¬ ing that all of this has served not only to build the radio broadcasting industry into a gigantic enterprise, but has served to put dozens of broadcast stations on a sound and profitable basis. INTERPOLATION In conclusion I wish to state that broadcasters must con¬ stantly be alert to the possibilities of promotion. I feel that in many eases not enough emphasis is given to the work of station promotion. There are still some stations who are riding the crest of the wave so to speak, but they must surely guard against the undertow of such business depressions as that from which we are just emerging. We must employ these ideas to their best advantage with our utmost ability. We must make sure first of all that the ideas are fresh, new and unique, that they are workable and practicable, and that they do not take away from the ultimate dignity and character of radio as an art and as a profession. I like to look upon broadcasting as the finest public service which the arts and sciences, education, religion and industry of our present-day civilization have brought to the people of our country and the whole world. . Page 140 .