Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

How TV Turns .. "Strangers into Customers » J-HE NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY has Com- pleted the most far-reaching survey ever attempted in television. The monumental Fort Wayne study, which took two years and $250,000 to complete, reveals for the first time the full impact of television on the way people spend their time and money. The survey's most startling departure was to cover the market both before and after television. Researchers interviewed no fewer than 7,500 households — one out of every six families — before television came to Fort Wayne. Then they re-surveyed the same homes about six months after the city's first TV station went on the air. As a result of this research in depth, the survey came up with such findings as these: After getting television, people spend nearly twice as much time with it as they spend with newspapers, magazines and radio combined. Television provides seven out of every ten "ad- vertising impressions" absorbed by set owners. Brands that are advertised on television enjoy a pref- erence of nearly two-to-one over competing non-TV brands. Motives of the Survey The study, titled "Strangers into Customers," was undertaken by NBC after a thorough canvassing of advertising people. The network discovered that ad- vertising leaders were already convinced of television's tremendous impact. What they most wanted to know was just how the power of television is brought to bear. For example: At what stage of the sale does the TV influence come in? How does it affect the non-TV brand? To answer these and other questions would go far beyond anything before attempted in TV research. Ideally, a solution would require a double survey: first in a market without television, then in the same market after the advent of TV. NBC chose Fort Wayne, Indiana, as a medium-sized, Midwestern city without its own tele- vision station. The survey, conducted by W. R. Sim- mons & Associates, got underway in October, 1953, a month before Fort Wayne's first TV station, WKJG- TV, was scheduled to go on the air. In the first wave of interviews, researchers questioned 7,500 households — a sample size approaching a census. After about six months of television, the same homes Discussing Fort Wayne survey, left to right, are Sylvester L. Weaver, Jr., NBC President; Bernard C. Duffy, Presi- dent of Batton, Barton, Durstine and Osborn, and Dr. Thomas Coffin, NBC Manager of Research. were re-contacted, with some 90 per cent being success- fully re-interviewed. To make up the survey data only those homes interviewed on both occasions were counted. Researchers found that between the two interviewing waves 35 per cent of the families in Fort Wayne bought television sets. These new set buyers, who had owned their sets an average of three and a half months, were the group whose habits were most closely scrutinized. The survey showed that television had a profound effect on the way people budget their time. Before tele- vision, they spent 190 minutes on all media. Afterward, they spent 94 minutes on radio, newspapers, and mag- azines combined; and 173 minutes on television. Of their total media time, in other words, two out of every three minutes were spent with TV. "Remembered Advert/sing" In this way, television vastly expands the advertiser's opportunity to get across his message. The survey showed that TV becomes the viewers' most powerful source for "remembered advertising." One of the most revolutionary aspects of the study was its investigation of television's role in pre-selling the customer. It was the first time that a survey had 14 RADIO AGE