Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1947)

at the teen-age audience. While such a program does build up a widespread listener group, interest would of course be greatest among the groups whose particular school was being featured on a broadcast. In between a schedule designed to reach a limited audience and one directed at a diversified audience, is the campaign designed to reach the mass audience on a consistent schedule, with the opportunity to expand that audience from week to week a primary objective. The M. H. Lacy Co., Dover, N. H. represents this type of programming in its sponsorship of the Stork Club over WHEB. Twice a week, the store, through its five-minute radio program, extended a welcome to infants born at neighboring hospitals. Such a feature has as much general pulling power in a community as the newspaper columns of local news, and it gave Lacy's a chance to promote its infants' wear department with the general public, with a "grow up with Lacy's" theme. Importance of the commercial Since any advertisement in any medium is in itself only a method of contact between the advertiser and customer, one cannot put too much emphasis on the importance of good commercial copy. (1) Basic Function Commercials may be designed to serve a variety of purposes, .with the institutional, the sales, and the special events approaches being the three main categories. The F. & R. Lazarus Company, Columbus, Ohio, illustrates the institutional approach in connection with its sponsorship of a weekly half-hour broadcast called Hi-Jinx, slanted at the teen-age group. This series was presented entirely by the teen-agers, and, while it originated in the store's assembly center and was designed to promote the high school ready-to-wear department and publicize the services of its high-school consultant, no commercials of any nature, other than store credit lines, were used on this WCOL program, and no merchandise was advertised. The H. P. King Company, Bristol, Tennessee, in its sponsorship of History Quiz over WOPI is another example of the institutional approach. While the store had a consislciu radio schedule of eighteen (juarlcr-hour newscasts weekly, it added History (hiir. as an institutional oftering and as a tribute to youth. A total of 120 students from a wide area, selected by history teachers, competed for the grand prize of a four-year scholarship, and only credit lines of an institutional nature were used on the program. On the other hand, Stevenson's, La Crosse, Wisconsin, sponsored a transcribed series over WKBH, to create teen-age interest in its sportswear. Here, in contrast to the Lazarus approach, was a program appealing to the same age group, but it was designed as a sales medium, with specific items of merchandise mentioned on the program. As a further tie-in, the store used window displays of items mentioned on the air. Illustrative of the special events approach is Konner's, Paterson, New Jersey, who used radio to launch the opening of its Konner's Young Third Floor Shop. According to Morry Goldstein, hundreds of people were turned away at the grand opening which was broadcast over WPAT, and when the broadcast was over and the store settled down to business, it finished with the largest day's business in its history. However, the special events angle is broader in scope than that of broadcasts in connection with grand openings. For example, the Brown-Dunkin Dry Goods Company, Tulsa, Oklahoma, is one of the most consistent and largest users of radio time in that city, and was a pioneer in the medium. Throughout its use of broadcasting advertising, it has placed considerable emphasis on programs slanted at the juvenile audience. For the most part, commercials on such programs as its Children's Hour are limited to boys' and girls' items, but on the occasion of major store-wide promotions, the commercials are slanted to meet these special conditions. Of the three approaches, the sales approach has by far the most to recommend it, and it is, on the whole, the basic attitude that specialty shops should have towards the broadcast medium. (2) Content Significant What is said in the commercials is far more important JULY, 1 947 • 239 •