Sponsor (Apr-June 1959)

seven months until January 1950 when he got relocated at Young & Rubicam as head of its estimating department. By August of that year, he was back at timebuying again, has handled such clients as Borden Co., Beech-Nut (baby foods and gum l . Johnson & Johnson, Royal McBee Corp., Tussy cosmetics. He recently was named media account supervisor at Y&R. Dollard is married, has three children, lives in Uniondale, L. I. on enough land to allow him to follow his hobby of gardening. "I've always felt,"' Dollard told SPONSOR, "that a buyer's success depends greatly on his relations with station reps. I've relied on them over the years and they've been extremely helpful to me. I've never known another business except advertising," Dollard went on, "and frankly, I'd be lost without it. It's a business of people, and I like people." Timebuying has come a long way in the more than 30 years Dollard has been in advertising. Dollard feels a lot of the change has come about through the switch from specialization to all-media respon sibility, that this has increased the importance of the buyer and has made his contribution to accounts and agency of more magnitude. The Silver Nail Award was presented by Frank Silvernail I for whom it was named and who was its first winner last year ) . The Gold Key Award, given for the first time this year, was presented by H. Preston Peters, of Peters, Griffin, Woodward and president of SRA. Peters also presided at the luncheon. The awards committee was headed b\ Lewis H. Avery of Avery -Knodel. SRA decided last year to perpetuate the annual Silver Nail plaque for timebuyers, has now added the Gold Key as a companion award for other agency executives. The winners were selected by secret ballot. The Silver Nail winner was decided by the vote of rep firm salesmen; the Gold Key selection was based on the vote of the SRA rep firms. Ballots went out on 1 March, were returned by 15 April. The awards program was attended bv more than 300 guests, including prominent advertising and agency executives. SRA members, and broadcasters. ^ ,tL^s« 'S& * VVtHJ SPICE for the SRA luncheon was supplied by WNEW (New York) team of Klavan & Finch. Klavan (I) portrays visiting station manager making life complicated for a N.Y. rep, (Finch) 18 How Hood ^ Hood & Sons devised contest to lure audience into second chapter of '26 Men' ff hat the braves in the accompanying picture are trying to do is whoop up the ratings of a syndicated film show sponsored by H. P. Hood & Sons (dairy and food products) in New England. Hood originally had contracted for 52 episodes of 26 Men in nine markets, then signed up for 52 more after the first go-round proved successful. Then came these problems: 1 1 1 How can vou sustain audience interest in the extension of a show — and thus keep the cost-per-1,000 low ? 1 2 1 What sort of human assistance will help the celluloid characters in the can? Paul Eaton. Hood ad manager, points out that Hood had been getting lower cost-per-1,000 per-commercial minute than the average halfhour network program. But neither Eaton nor the agency. Kenyon & Eckhardt in Boston, cared to trust to lurk the second time. "in all but one market," says Eaton, "we were slotted against Lassie, and in all markets program competition was stiffening. The\ derided to try a contest promotion. A salient point was that it should involve as much '"human assistance" as possible. "Stations will respond." says account executive Lou Nicholaus, "if you devise a contest that is in their interests. Since our aim was audience-building, we knew that with the right ingredients we could count the stations in." Plan was to divide costs equitably among advertiser, stations, and producer (Russell Hayden). The contest itself required merelj a post card entrj in 2d word-: "Whj I'd like to appear in a 26 Men tv program." Since onl) five of the nine markets would be involved, five winner I plus husband or wife) would result. Prizes: Trips to Arizona where the show was filmed. Responsibilities for the success of the contest were di\ ided thus: SPONSOR 1(> mu L959