Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1947)

rest special age-groups, or to increase les in general. But as Barbara Brooks, of the J. L. UDSON Company, Detroit, puts it, Vhen you contemplate the production a radio program, you are face to face th a most fascinating and intriguing lase of broadcasting, because you are >out to provide entertainment and cony information to the public. But most iportant, you are also about to meet e supreme test, which is, will you sell e merchandise you are going to adver,e on this program." And such a test nnot be approached on a by-guess-and-gosh basis! irpose behind the campaign Whatever the purpose behind a camlign, there is one advantage in a broadst series which is shared by no other ivertising medium. The retailer has a ance to establish, by means of his proam, a personal contact with actual and )tential customers, with the human dee the direct line of communication. As Miss Brooks observed, "Broadcastg is one of the most powerful instruents for establishing store personality, cause it is the most personal form of advertising." )ints on audience selection At the very outset the retailer must termine the specific audience to whom wants to direct his appeal. Basically is audience appeal breaks down into ree categories— the adult group, the iolescent group or the juvenile. The iult audience to whom the retailer of fants' and children's merchandise )uld be appealing is predominantly a minine one, and has proved to be very sponsive. (1) Adult Group For example, when e Tots and Teens Shop, Le Mars, wa, opened, Clara Owen felt it was :cessary to expand the trading area, ice the population of the town was ily 5000. To achieve that end, Miss wen purchased time on a station in a arby larger community and directed r message to the feminine listener with e copy containing such phrases as "from adle to college" and "from high chair high school." According to Miss Owen, LY, 1947 the scries was instrumental in establishing a very satisfactory out-of-town trade. (2) Adolescent Group Of late, the adolescent group has come into its own as a sales potential, and throughout tlie country programs have sprung up whose basic appeal has been primarily to that group. Stores have found that here is a largely non-reading group which can be reached most effectively by radio. Results have shown that it is a highly enthusiastic group. For example, the Boston Store, Milwaukee, sponsored a Jam Session over WTMJ as an all-out High School Shop promotion, and it supported this weekly thirty-minute series, which was broadcast at 6 p.m. every Saturday, with practically every other medium. Aimed at the highschool crowd, it had dancing during the broadcast, and brief commercials written in current "slanguage." For its College Shop, the store put on an entirely different program, thus illustrating the value of selecting a specific audience in the planning of a successful program from the point of view of response in sales. (3) Juvenile Group In the third group, which takes in the pre-school child, the retailer needs to slant his program toward the mother, on the theory that where there is a child, there is a parent— usually the mother— in the immediate background. Experience has proved that in return for satisfactory entertainment for the preschool child, the mother expresses her gratitude through increased store patronage. In Baltimore, the Princess Shops operated on that theory when they offered the Little Princess Playhouse over WITH. Each Saturday morning at 9:05, storybook characters stepped out from the pages of children's books, thanks to the Princess Shops. . . . "The Friendly Fashion Stores for Every Feminine Age." Commercials were written in the same vein of fantasy as the program itself, and while they were directed to the young listeners, they called attention to the children's clothing department by appealing to the mothers— through their children. A consideration of markets, locations, personnel, policies and services will help the retailer to determine which of the • 235 •