Radio showmanship (Sept 1940-May 1941)

as The Netherland Program, we decided to conduct a contest to get a name for the show. A super de luxe Mixmaster was offered for the best name. Over 200 letters were received in five days. Mother's Morning Meeting was selected as the name of the program. (This could be listed in newspaper radio columns which refused to name sponsors or products.) Most important, it fitted the type of program that had to be built. Over 95 percent of the response mentioned the brand Netherland, and it is safe to say that the contest won new listeners as well as certain identification with the listeners already established. Leads from the contest letters received were followed by the routemen, and the new business gained at once more than paid for the cost of the prize. However, mail response is not always a perfect indication of the effectiveness of a program. Since the fundamental purpose of our radio show was to get sales, we made the promotion of specials for Thanksgiving the real test. We checked sales of special ice cream desserts against the sales record of the year previous and found that actual orders received at the dairy for the . specials were about 10 percent ahead of the year before, with the advertising costs cut to less than one-third. At Christmas time, another surefire check on listener-interest was developed in ice cream copy. The commercials took the form of telephone conversations between the announcer, Jim De Line, and Miss Brown, the telephone receptionist at the Netherland Dairy, who takes the telephone orders. 1 hese conversations were written as actual calls for information concerning types of holiday desserts and prices. The idea that Netherland Ice Cream was the dessert to serve for Christmas dinner was Stressed, and Miss Brown was publicized as the person to call. a result, Miss Brown became an ice eream authority. She recommended tile fce cream dessert for women hard pressed to deride what rve. Sales were not only ahead ot the previous year, hut ahead of the 'I hanksgiving sales aUo. When a Netherland driver he the father ot twills, we in vited all the twins ot Central New York to join in celebrating the event as the quests n{ the Netherland Twins at a theatre party. Loew'l State Theatre allowed twins to come in free in return for the announcements on the air Only six announcements were made, and we expected that 10 or 12 sets of twins would take advantage of the invitation. To our great satisfaction, 112 sets of twins came. Furthermore, this party received favorable newspaper publicity, cost the dairy only the ice cream served, and brought hundreds of dollars in good will. What else has the program accomplished? A new product, Netherland Homogenized Vitamin D Milk, was introduced solely through the program. No other advertising was used. The first week 500 quarts a day were sold. Sales at the end of the second week were up to 2J00 quarts per day! The pulling power of the show proved itself further when two offers of a free Netherland Homemaker's Handbook was made to listeners. The first pulled over 300 responses. The second offer, a month later, netted even a greater number of replies, even more direct business. Each response was followed by a personal call by a Netherland salesman. (Continued on page 117) : B9 RADIO SHOWMANSHI