Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1947)

Dusiness Doubled in Year With 5'Minute Radio Series Main Advertising Medium Kent Cleaners, Portland, Me., switches from spots to program A YEAR AGO, Kent Cleaners, drycleaning concern with six stores in Portland and stores in four other Maine cities, found itself on its own after separation from a larger establishment. To improve its service, it added a shoe-repair department to its laundry and dry-cleaning departments, and to stimulate new business, it embarked on an all-out expansion campaign. Today, Kent Cleaners reports its business has nearly doubled in the past 12 months. And the chief advertising medium used by the establishment has been The Daily Almanac, a five-miniUe program broadcast over WGAN, Portland, six days a week at 8:25 a.m. The program, prepared and broadcast by announcer Kenneth Long, airs (1) a varied assortment of information on the weather, calendar statistics, tides and phases of the moon. Example: "Today is the 22nd day of the 2nd month, the 53rd day of 1947. The sun came up at 6:29 a.m. and it will set at 3:20 p.m. And if you're out in your car this evening, your lights should be on at 5:45 p.m. High tide will be at 11:49 a.m. and low tide at 6:08 p.m. The present temperature is 15 degrees. The year 1943 had the warmest February 22nd on record at the Portland Weather Bureau, when the temperature was 51 degrees. The year 1918 saw the coldest day, when the mercury dropped to 7 degrees. Maine is digging out this morning after a northeast blizzard. The average temperature in the state is 21 degrees. One-inch of new snow is expected. Moderate to fresh northwest winds will prevail all day. Driving is hazardous throughout the state, especially on side streets, with plows clearing main highways." In addition to information of this kind, the program includes (2) tidbits of history and news made in past years on the broadcast date. Example: "Let's look now at the events of the 22nd of February in the pages of history: As we all know, George Washington, the nation's first president, was born 215 years ago today at Fredericksburg, Va. . . . James Russell Lowell, the poet, was born on February 22 in 1819. . . . And on that same day, Florida was ceded to the United States by Spain. ... Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts, was born 90 years ago today in 1857. ... A man named F. W. Wool worth founded his first five and ten-cent store at Utica, N. Y., on the 22nd of February, in the year 1879. . . . On the 22rid of February, in 1921, the first trans-continental air mail flight was made from San Francisco to New York. . . . Twenty years ago today, in 1927, President Coolidge became the first president to speak to Americans in a nation-wide radio hook-up." The theme is an Art Tatum piano recording, used for 20 seconds at the opening and close of the program. Two 45second commercials, one in the middle and one at the end, inform listeners of the wide variety of services and the locations of Kent Cleaner stores in Maine, i.e., ''Busy young feet need sound shoes. Once a week turn your child's shoes soleside up and check for run-over heels and too-thin soles. Then see Kent's guaranteed shoe service.*' Before sponsoring The Daily Almanac, which is its first radio program, Kent's had used only a spot announcement campaign. But the concern feels that a fiveminiUe program every day, Monday through Saturday, with information of wide general interest, builds good will along with customers. Results indicate that linking the idea of a good cleaning service with public service in general by broadcasting complete weather reports and forecasts— always of high importance to residents of Maine— has stimulated business. • 126 • RADIO SHOWMANSH IP