NAB reports (Mar-Dec 1933)

Record Details:

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MR. HARLOW. There are three questions I want to ask, and I think you can answer them all. Do you make a charge for this street car card? MR. PATT: No. You mean to the advertiser? MR. HARLOW : Yes. How do you determine to which client you will give this service to, and have you had any unfortunate reactions from clients who felt that they de; served the service and you didn’t feel they were entitled to it ? MR. PATT : In this particular case, the work is not far enough under way to judge just what that reaction is going to be. However, we have enough street ear cards so that every advertiser with a program may be represented in the ear cards equally. In other words, we have 1500 cards going in every month. MR. HARLOW: Don’t you believe that this is going to be such an integral part of your service that you will never be able to discard it at any future period? MR, PATT: I do. MR. HARLOW : In other words, you have to assume the future of WGAR in selling time must include street car ads or some equivalent form of merchandising? MR, PATT: Primarily any activity of this kind that we undertake is station promotion and not advertiser promotion. When he buys time from the station, all he buys is the time on the air. Anything of this nature is extra and is regarded by us as something which builds the station more than it does the program. In advertising a station, we are indirectly ad¬ vertising every program on the station. MR, HARLOW : Then you don’t fear that should your competitor in your locality start something of a similar na¬ ture, perhaps a little more drastic, carrying out .your principles of merchandising, you must at least offer as much as your competitor is offering? What is the ultimate of such a condition? MR, PATT : I think that we haven’t advanced far enough in this sort of tiling to tell whether or not we can carry the thing too far; perhaps we can. But I like to look upon these as in the category of full page advertisements and smaller advertisements which we see almost daily in the newspapers. We see published letters which are sent in by their advertisers, telling them what marvelous results they got. In most cases that is not only advertising the newspaper’s effectiveness but the advertiser as well. The advertiser in a good many cases would rather have that particular letter of his published than full page ads, even where you pay card rates. MR. HARLOW: Am I correct in assuming you would recommend the thought rather than the means of this present condition? MR. PATT : I would like to say this : I believe that the best kind of promotion that we can do is to use our own facilities to talk about ourselves, and I think Mr. Fitzpatrick, whose book I have just talked about, did that more effectively than anything else I have run across at the present time. I know that a number of stations started similar programs a few weeks after Mr. Fitzpatrick started his, and got mar¬ velous reception. CHAIRMAN CARPENTER : May I ask you this : Do you use the facilities of ear cards as a sales argument? MR. PATT: Not to any great extent. CHAIRMAN CARPENTER: In other words, it is more station promotion than merchandising? MR. PATT: That is right. Merchandising is something entirely separate, although merchandising is a part of station promotion, because in promoting anything we must combine all of the best arts of salesmanship. CHAIRMAN CARPENTER: Are there any other ques¬ tions? MR. FOX: One thought occurs to me, in both promotion and merchandising, and that is that we must never run into the situation in which the newspapers found themselves, where we have competition of stations who in trying to outdo the competitor are going to spend more money than they have business to spend. With us, while we do a certain amount of what we call merchandising, we put the company on a very definite basis and arrange to do so much for so much business. In that way we feel we can control it. We don’t make a charge for it. MR. PATT: So far as merchandising is concerned, that comes under a different topic for discussion today; but so far as your station promotion on a competitive basis is con¬ cerned, I think that is something we ought to leave to the President and his Industrial Recovery Act. MR. FOX: The car card is a magnificent piece of adver¬ tising for the client as well as being good salesmanship. MR. PATT : I wanted to bring out the fact merchandising is a type of sales promotion or station promotion, CHAIRMAN CARPENTER: Are there any other ques¬ tions? If not, we will pass on to the next topic. Thank you very much, John. The next topic is very closely connected with station promo¬ tion, in fact, as you can see, they overlap in many instances, “Merchandising,” to be discussed by Harry Ilowlett, WIIK, Cleveland. (Applause) MERCHANDISING By HARRY HOWLETT It is with some degree of trepidation that I approach this much-agitated subject of merchandising. For that reason, 1 want to deal more with principles than methods — the prin¬ ciples involved in this proposition. As a premise, then, I think it is safe to state that almost every individual member of the industry is in some form or another engaged in merchandising at the present time. In the station with complete crews that do a comprehensive job of reporting and selling, down to the station that very reluctantly consents to send out a file letter, I think, we have the ex¬ treme ends of the poles. I think the difference in the co¬ operation they give the advertiser is found in the differing viewpoints toward what is legitimate merchandising or sup¬ porting of a radio program. While that condition exists, we as an industry find ourselves more or less the prey of those who have been gathered to¬ gether to do business for longer years than we have, the advertising agency. This term “merchandising” is somewhat new to us as an industry. We didn’t hear much of it prior to 1929. We have heard quite a lot about it since. The function came into being, I think, for two primary reasons; first, the desire of the advertiser to make his advertising dollar work to its maximum capacity; secondly, the desire of the radio station operator to make his programs ultimately successful. He saw a steadily growing casualty list of his programs and he reasoned that many of these casualties were caused be¬ cause the radio effort was not correctly supported by the ad¬ vertiser. He conceived then that some support on his part to continue the valuable contract on his station was a legiti¬ mate effort. I presume that was his conception; I hope it was, in lowering the bars to merchandising. I do not think the advertiser thought that merchandising was a legitimate function of radio, but I do certainly think that he thought if he found he could get such service, he would definitely go after it. Following the years 1929 and 1930, the advertiser re¬ membered the days when he had dealt with the newspapers before they were strong enough to standardize their prac¬ tices and stiffen their rate schedules, when he had managed to inveigle them into the field of merchandising and seemed able to get almost anything he desired from them. Now lie found here in this young industry plunged into an economic depression, an opportunity to bring out from the cupboard the old devices, schemes, and pleas, and make them work all over again. He certainly tried to do that. Let me at this point review briefly the background upon which we have this merchandising proposition presented. Radio, not many years ago, came out of the laboratory — the result of engineers and scientists. It was given to the public first by people who hoped by some other means to receive remuneration for the gift of radio to the public. So rapid was the development of this industry that it was quickly found the strain on the purse strings was too great, and some form of revenue must be obtained. It was here that the commercial side of radio entered the picture. It was readily seen that radio was a natural carrier of advertising, presenting forms and types that had not been used before and could not be used in printed mediums. The development of radio was so . Page 141 .