Sponsor (Apr-June 1959)

'30.6% SHARE OF AUDIENCE , 6:00 P.M. TO MIDNIGHT | JAN. FEB. A R B KVII-TV's audience is up nearly 100% since new ownership and programming in October. NOV. '58 MAY '58 FEB. '58 Commercial commentary continued THAT'S NOT ALL!! K-7 is first in Amarillo in total rating points, three nights out of the week — with four of the top ten shows. let your Boiling man give you the detailed story and show you some amazing figures. KVII-TV amarillo, texas a C R. "Dick" Worn Vice-President and General Manager Represented nationally by the Boiling Company It springs from the fact— known to all experienced admen — thai one piece of copy, one radio or tv commercial, or one print ad ran he man) times more effective than another. I hese copv differences land they can run higher than 1.000%) represent the greatest challenge and most dangerous risk that any advertiser faces. They mean that he can get 10c* or $10 of value for each dollar of his advertising expenditure. And what causes these copy variations.' Well, they're due to the differences in the individual abilities of the planners, writers, visualizers and producers of finished commercials and advertisements. This is a fact which many businessmen find brutally hard to accept, rhey'd like to believe that advertising creativeness I for that's what were talking about I is a group or "team" matter — that it can be produced automatically by a smoothly organized business machine. But it ain't so. Joe. It just ain't so. Creativeness is essentially a personal, individual and lonely proposition. And Heaven help vou il you look for it except in individuals. A talent not a technique An e\en more unpleasant fact about creativeness is that it is only in part an ability that can be acquired through training, research and experience. It is true of course that people can develop their creative powers. Perhaps BBDO's brainstorming is one good way. I, personally, have found, though, that kindness, understanding, encouragement and respect do more to stimulate creative people than anything else. It is also true that facts, research, experience all contribute to the creative process. They can be, as Harper says, helpful tools. But when you've said this you've said only half the truth. For real creativeness, I'm convinced, is a gift, a talent, a spark which our grandfathers would not have been ashamed to call God-given. If a writer or an artist doesn't have it, then no amount of textbook training or merchandising saw) will give it to him. The quality of living communication Finally, let's recognize that when we use the word '"creative in advertising, we mean it in a highly specialized artistic sense. Creativeness, as we use it, does not mean merely the ability to produce something new and different. It is not merely laboring mightily and bringing forth a stone, a sarcophagus or a set of statistics. Creativeness on our terms means the ability to produce something that is alive — copv that sings, pictures that glow with vitality, music that grips the heart. This living qualilv is the thing which distinguishes what we call creativity from mere inventiveness, ingenuity or productivity. \iid win is it important? Because our business is communicating with people, and this is the electric spark, the divine lire that makes our communication easier. I think ii i a fine thing thai advertising, alter its long drunken love affair with dizzying research facts and pompous marketing statistics, is returning to an appreciation of creativeness. But let's remember thai all we're reallj doing is reaffirming the overwhelming importance of the gifted, talented, trul) inspired individual. ^ 12 SPONSOR 2.") tVPRiL 1959