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Kadio Campaign Puts Drug St
With radio as adoertising medium, discs grow from a minor store departmer)t to a major business, with thousar)ds of dollars spent in airtime for Super Cut Rate Drug Store, over WWDC airwaves, Washington, D. C
WHEN isiEN WITH idcas tie-in with a super salesman, the resuk is that old— but money-paying story— about the man who built the better mousetrap.
The men with ideas were the Feld brothers who opened the Super Cut Rate Drug Store in AV^ashington, D.C., in May, 1940.
The little record department of 200 records which they installed was there more for the entertainment of the customers than for sale. But the Feld boys, Irvin and Israel, found that customers turned from the soda fountain to say "I want that record," or "Wrap that one up for me." So they put in a little more stock and bought |50 worth of time in spot announcements on Jackson Lowe's 1450 Club over WWDC. That did it!
Lowe, known as the "Mayor of Connecticut Avenue" because of his disc jockeying over WWDC, sold Super Cut Raie Drug even better than expected, and the record stocks were always at a low ebb.
A new business is born
The owners of the store realized that here was a growing business which they hadn't anticipated. Immediaiely they went to work. Six months after the first spot announcements on tiic "Mayor's" program, they bought a i;5-minute daily show. A little later the schedule was increased to a half-hour show every day over WVVDC. The sale of records soared!
The war halted, for a moment, the rising record sales after each radio broadcast. Shellac was hard to get and recoid companies were demanding old records
before they would sell outlets new ones.
To meet that situation the Feld brothers enlisted the aid of school children, with prizes for those bringing in the greatest number of old and broken records. Teams of youngsters collected so many discs that the store was able to replace records in stock as fast as AVWDC and Jack Lowe sold them on the air. In the period of collecting scrap records, over two million of them passed through the Feld brothers' hands. It wasn't luitisual for them to send a ten-ton trailer loaded with old records to a recording company at periodic intervals.
Recording company next
The name Super became so well known among record fans that the Feld brothers decided to try another idea. They located a pressing plant that would press 5,000 records a month using their own label Super Discs. It wasn't long before^ a new recording company, Super Discs, made its appearance. In April, 1945, a new store. Super Music and Appliances, under the guidance of Herb Fribush, was added to their interests.
What happened after the second disc released with their own label is musical history. A phniker boy (guitar player) by the name of Artluu' Smith recorded Guitar Boogie. The shellac wasn't dry before it was given its debut by Lowe over AVVV^DC. Guitar Boogie soon became one of the ten best records, and kept its top position all over the United States. Other recording companies pressed the time, bin Art Smith himself was under a long-term contract to Super.
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RADIO SHOWMANSHIP