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AN institutional radio program with I no special effort made to merchandise it may sound like heresy, but that is what the Benesch-Federman Co., Cleveland, O., has been doing for eight years. That idea was successful in the beginning. It is still creating new store traffic every day. Our method is simple. We make friends with our customers, both in the store and on the air, and they come back to shop time and again.
Our furniture store on Broadway Avenue is in the heart of Cleveland's nationality belt, and we have been in business for many years. Our heritage of good will, built up through the years, is now our greatest asset, and we are proud of it. It was this intangible factor which prompted us in 1933 to venture into the radio field with a program of our own.
We believed then, as we do now, that our customers (largely of Bohemian, Hungarian and Polish descent) enjoyed most the radio programs which featured their own native music. There weren't many such programs then, so we hired an orchestra, and bought a half-hour on WHK to present the Bohemian Hour.
Since it was to be strictly an institutional program, we kept the commercial continuity at a minimum. Every Sunday, Lud Teller (of our store) served as master of ceremonies on a program which consisted mainly of our customers' cherished polkas and obereks. The orchestra played eight or nine complete selections, and each program was literally jammed with music. Chatter, includ
ood Wi
Hdw a Musical Progra: by Albert L Federman.
ing commercials, seldom exceeded five minutes.
The social calendar feature of the Bohemian Hour proved to us immediately that folk musical programs of this kind had a huge ready-made following. Teller made birthday announcements, and told of church and club events. People came to the store from miles around, just to make requests for announcements on the program, and many times they bought merchandise when they came. This feature of the program created valuable store traffic, but aside from inviting customers into the store to make their requests, there never has been any special effort made to merchandise the program.
But here I am, writing in the past tense. It has been eight years since we first went on the air. We still have our institutional program featuring the mosi popular "old country" music; we still have that social calendar, and we are still creating new store traffic. We still don't use any highpowered merchandising stunts. We don't have to. This program is the only advertising our firm has used, and business has
Left . . . Featured on BENE S C H FEDERMAN'S Old World Melodies is Jerry Pobuda and his 1 1 man orchestra, all specialists in Bohemian and Czech music.
RADIO SHOWM ANSH I P