Radio today (Jan-Mar 1939)

When the crowd gets tired of skiing, this Philco Portable will hit the spot with everyone. SPOTLIGHT PORTABLES! Focus attention on these best sellers by taking them wherever there's a crowd "Wherever you go, take a portable along and let 'em hear it." That's a good slogan for this winter season. Good sales strategy for weekends and business days. Nothing sells the new type of set like a demonstration. People gape at the no-antenna, no wire-connection sets. They marvel at its compactness, its light weight, its swell tone. Curiosity often leads to sales. And having a portable on the scene stimulates that curiosity. On the ice-skating pond, at the ski slide, at parties, at lodge meetings, on a night-club table, in a Pullman compartment — portables attract attention and make sales. Suggests Vic Mucher of Clarostat Mfg. Co. of Brooklyn, N. T. : "Why don't dealers, distributors and manufacturers give out portables over the week-end to their employes who get around. Showing these sets to their friends will be A-l promotion. With 40,000 to 50,000 servicemen and salesmen showing such sets in public over week-ends, a tremendous exposure to the public would result, followed by many sales." This is mighty good sales promotion. Loan portables to your workers and let them demonstrate. Let a skating or ski fan take one out to show his friends at the weekend fun. When you go to the Rotary, Lions or some other luncheon club or lodge meeting, take a portable along. During the social period you can thrill the boys with a demonstration. In your window displays and advertising, feature the many uses of this new, compact set with the lowdrain tubes. Stress the fact that it is not just another portable, but a highly improved set that is just the thing for traveling. Folks like bandsmen are fine prospects. Recently, Tommy Dorsey bought all his boys portables. While hopping around to one-night stands, the bandsmen tune in their sets to hear rival musicians. Variety folk find them swell for backtage dressing rooms. Traveling salesmen and executives like them, too. For any place where a source of current is not available or convenient, the portable fills the bill. And that goes, too, for the swank skating pond at Rockefeller Center in New York City, as shown on our cover. Harper s Bazaar used portables in a unique advertising stunt. To insure the leading fashion experts hearing new fashion notes broadcast via short wave from Paris by Harper's Carmel Snow, an already-playing portable, pre-tuned to the correct station, and wrapped in cellophane was delivered to each of the experts. A note to each expert said : "Listen to Carmel Snow on this RCA Victor, and read Harper's Bazaar March 1st, March 15th and April 1st." The delivery boys also informed each one that the set was a gift if they would listen to the broadcast. Low operating cosf Cost of operating these new portables is estimated at about 2 to 3 cents an hour which includes both A and B power. This extremely low cost is accomplished through the use of the new low-drain 1.4 volt tubes and improved batteries. Manufacturers announcing battery portables are: Belmont Mission Bell Continental Philco Crosley Pilot De Wald RCA Emerson Sentinel Espey Sonora Fada Troy General Electric Stewart-Warner Grebe Warwick Halson Wells-Gardner Howard Westinghouse Hotels are swell prospects for battery portable sets, suggests RCA. Initial investment is extremely low — operating cost reasonable. 12 Radio Today