Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1941)

rocery Sales Thru the Air By A. A. Bissmeyer, Advertising Manager for the 35 Albers Super Markets Located in Central and Southeastern Ohio After two years of experimenting with radio, we now have a program that suits our requirements by doing three essential jobs: 1. It increases weekly traffic. 2. It skyrockets sales on any single item we want to move each week. 3. It gets listeners to scan carefully every item in our newspaper ads. With this program, we've lessened the gap between advertising and sales. A survey made by the A. C. Nielsen Co., radio researchers of Chicago, informed us that 42% of all housewives seldom or never read retail food ads. Customary media used in our industry to induce a great many housewives to buy a lot of items are newspapers and handbills. These two items on our advertising expense analysis account for a large percentage of our advertising dollar. Our competitors, likewise, use When thirty-ish, progressive A. A. Bissmeyer left school, he went behind a grocery counter — but not for long! Store managers, ever alert to the potentialities of a superior worker, began shifting him about from one branch of the business to another. Today, a student of the retail food business, Bissmeyer is advertising manager of Albers Super Markets, has directed all ad promotions for the 35 markets in central and southeastern Ohio for the past five years. No small part of the success of Mystree Tunes is due to the fact that ad man Bissmeyer personally takes time to work out the complete details of each broadcast with the advertising agency and radio station. Outside of business hours, he has two hobbies: his children. the same methods and means of advertising. Newspapers and handbills give the housewife an ideal medium for a comparison of food values, but the question that bothered us was, "Do all housewives read food ads in newspapers and handbills ; even if they did, do they make comparisons?" The Nielsen survey gave us the answer to this question. Our next problem was finding a means of reaching those housewives who do not read ads, and getting them into our stores. It was three years ago that we first ventured into the radio field. At that time, the quiz show was becoming more popular every day, so our first effort was a quiz show direct from our stores. We installed lines and each morning broadcast from a different store, interviewing customers. This program produced definite, traceable results. We were getting our message to the listeners, but, as in most of the spot quiz shows, we were merchandising only to our participating audience in the store. The next year, we used a daytime serial, the same type of program used so successfully by many national firms. We employed many successful merchandising stunts to promote the dramatic serial program. On one offer, we drew 7,500 pieces of mail from announcements made on two days. We were convinced our program had a following, but we wanted to do an even bigger merchandising job. Building a large audience Is only half the job. The other half is equally important — making customers out of the many listeners. On the other hand, we were equally convinced that the first essential for successful radio advertising is to have a program that attracts listeners. Without a large listening audience, no program, no matter how well it may be merchandised, can be successful. A radio program must first of all attract listeners. With this In mind, our agency, Frederic W. Ziv, Inc., worked out Mystree Tunes, a musical game In which the entire radio audience participates, not merely a small studio JUNE, 1941 163