NBC Transmitter (Dec 1945-Jan 1947)

April 1946 7 TELLING THE WORLD -And Selling It, Too; NBC’s Promotion Staff Geared For Ideas That Get Attention COUNTER-POINTS— Charles Philips, promotion manager of IT EAF (Neu York) and his assistant, Claude Barrere, created the “triple-feature” counter card plugging the dealer's service. RCA tubes and IT EAF. The promotion is dignified and attractive, and— most important —right at the point of sale where radio listeners are bound to see it and act. NEW YORK.— Even with the obvious audience-capturing appeal of survey-leading NRG network shows, advertisers still are told how and why these favorites click. The network advertising and promotion it is done, they promptly plunge into another big assignment. With Charles P. Hammond, director, at the helm, the department staff sails along smoothly. The promotion personnel set their sights on the objective of a punch-packed promotion piece, and when it is done, they proudly stand by for their leader’s approval. Briefly, and without any attempt to dramatize the busy, orderly production, here is the story of how it is done. One piece— “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!*’ —is a good point of contact with the machinery that made it. First, the sales department conveys the notion that Saturday morning spots, let us say, need a bit more promotion. Charles B. H. Va i 11. manager of NBC network sales promotion, and his assistant Ethel Gilchrist talk over the policy line and the general theme of the booklet. Then there is a huddle of the department’s key people. Copy chief Richard Blake, art director Parmelee W. Cusack and production head Aneita F. Cleary get together and consider the new problem. They talk and smoke and scribble and smoke and talk and scribble some more. The project begins to jog their minds. The thought is expressed that this “Saturday" booklet is based on bounding audience responsiveness, as determined by fan mail. The audience is interested, the staff is enthusiastic, and the promotion piece is on its way. But hold on. it's not so easy. “Shall we use photographs or art work?” “Should the type matter be tight or leaded?” “Should copy be straight and formal, or bright and breezy?” "What color for the art work?” The decision is art work because photos on the three shows chosen for illustration have been used before. The shows are those aimed at a teen-age audience, the buyers of "loads and loads” of merchandise. The copy is well leaded, bright and breezy. Now, call in a free-lance artist. Pick precisely the man for the job to be doneline cuts in a gay, amusing treatment, but definitely in good taste. That’s it! He left neat little white islands in the bright, sunny yellow. It’s a wonderful, bright Saturday morning on NBC. you know. “The Teentimers Club,” “Smilin’ Ed McConnell,” and “Home Is What You Make It keep the hours before Saturday noon cheery and helpful for the vast NBC audience. Art work and copy are prepared. Bids are obtained from the best printers and one gets the job. Everybody sit back and beams, thumbs in vest armholes? Not a bit. A feeling of stage-fright creeps into the very marrows of those who wait for the finished job. Will it be right? Of course it will. It was planned unhurriedly, executed with precision, finished neatlv. checked and double-checked. But booklets about programs, created in halcyon times surely are not the onlv measure of the department’s work. During the war. promotion was at its peak, alert for every newr angle on the war story and the part NBC played in telling the world its latest developments. Against the shifty, world-changing background of the war. the story of the NBC news room operations was told in "The Fourth Chime.” It was a volume of 176 pages, packed w ith newsworthy information by the network’s promotion staff. The document had for its title the use of a fourth note in NBC s signature chimes in the musical notation G, E and C. The E is repeated after the C as a signal to NBC key personnel to report for work when big news breaks. In addition to “The Fourth Chime,” three supplementary booklets on the war's progress were issued. These were titled "H. describing the European invasion, "X.” the wiping of Germany off the war map. and “V." the final victory over the Axis with Japan’s defeat. Each booklet w as done in about a week’s time, the staff ( Continued on page 11)