Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1943)

That getting there first, being first with a sales message pays dividends was the conclusion of \Vm. Ramos, owner of the Ramos Drug Co. Example: featured was a one-week special on a huge quantity of face cream that Ramos Drugs hadn't been able to move in a year's time. When the seven days were up, the stock was completely sold out! Sponsor's only direct offer made on the program: a V For Victory windshield sticker. More than 6,000 were given out. Hook: recipients had to call at the store to get them. That the program also can serve as a public relations medium came to light in a "joke" campaign. Ramos Drug Co. was losing spoons as souvenirs to customers. In a semi-humorous vein, sponsor offered to exchange spoons for forks. Many took the offer up, but what was more important, Ramos Drug got its point across, stopped the run on its spoons. AIR FAX: Broadcast Schedule: Daily, 7:15-7:30 A.M. First Broadcast: 1940. Preceded By: Local transcription. Followed By: Reveille Roundup. Sponsor: Ramos Drug Co. Station: KOH, Reno, Nev. Power: 1,000 watts. Population: 18,529. COMMENT: Inexpensive give-aways offer a splendid check on listener appeal, can be used to create new store traffic. Through such devices, listeners come to associate the news broadcast with the specific sponsor. Result: more business for the sponsor. Too, as the rooster's audience grows, sponsor here gets its sales message across 32 to an increasingly large niuiiber of potential customers. Because for defense workers without number, daytime is now night-time and night-time is daytime, sponsorship of midnight or later, and up-with-the-sun programs is in tune with the times. Laundries WORLD NEWS Under ordinary circumstances, the City Laundry & Dry Cleaning Co., Akron, O., dishes up the news, doesn't make it. But in these extraordinary times anything can happen and did for the sponsors of WJW six o'clock edition of the news. Up a stump for laundry workers was City Laundry. Newspaper ads failed to solve the problem in a town where defense plants were getting priorities on every person available for employment. No Johnny-Come-Lately to radio, City Laundry had found that its six-timesweekly newscasts produced customers galore. Now it had a new assignment for I radio: to produce laundry workers. On its Saturday night broadcast, listeners heard a call for women workers. Bright and early Monday morning, 90 girls put in appearances at City Laundry. Repeat of the single announcement a fortnight later produced another 60 willing workers. AIR FAX: World News is broadcast six times a week, sponsored on alternate days by City Laundry and Bond Clothing Co. Listeners get the cream of United Press and International News Service wires, and WJWs local news bureau offerings. First Broadcast: April 9, 1942. Broadcast Schedule: Monday through Saturday, 6:006:15 P.M. Preceded By: Sports. Followed By: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, March of Victory; Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Musical Variety. Sponsor: City Laundry 8C Dry Cleaning Co.; Bond Clothing Co. Station: WJW, Akron, O. Power: 250 watts. Population: 255,040. COMMENT: Versatility is the name for radio. With workers for civilian needs more and more at a premium, it may well be that radio will add another bow to its arrow, assist sponsors in tapping a reservoir of workers who might not be reached through any other medium. RADIO SHOWM ANSH I P