Sponsor (Apr-June 1959)

coin, \sas announced as the station which developed the lowest cost per inquiry on the Butter-Nut Flower Seed Offer, conducted on some 65 t\ stations. The prize to weatherman Bob Taylor: a 10-day. all-expense paid trip for two to Rio de Janiero, plus $500 for spending money . . . WBBM-TV, Chicago, is circulating a "squeezed out" folder telling advertisers and agencies to "plan ahead and avoid getting caught short . . . bu) now for the fall, and take your pick of choice nighttime I.D.'s and station breaks. Kudos: To the promotion department at WSPA-TV, Spartanburg, national honors for promoting CBS TV's The Big Payoff, sponsored by Colgate . . . To the art directors of KMTV, Omaha. 12 of the 44 awards in the Omaha Art Director's exhibition of editorial art and design . . . The Alfred P. Sloan Award won 1>\ the H. H. Meyer Packing Co. for its sponsorship of Signal 3 on WLW-T, Cincinnati . . . WHAS-TV, Louisville, honored for the second consecutive year in the University of Kentucky-Kentucky Associated Press "Broadcast News Awards for Distinguished Leadership." On the personnel front: Vincent Sheean, WBC's special Far Eastern correspondent, will set up a WBC news bureau in Peking to reporl di icriK from Red China. EQUIPMENT A new development that's hound to increase summer t\ viewing: Magnetic Amplifiers, Inc. ol \i» ^ mk has a device thai will enable vacationers and picnickers to plug a home portable tv set into a car's dashboard. It s a compact solid state static invei ter com ei ting six or 12 \ oil DC battel j cui rents to L 15 volt, 60 c) cle \< power, furnishing the equh alenl of 100 or 200 watts. Oilier recent equipment developments: • For weather reporting. \\ I.W\M & TV, Cincinnati, ha a new. electronic weather map machine, capable ol receiving a complete weather map ever) two minutes. It s a facsimile machine — the Alden Automatic Weather Map Receiver, connected with the U.S. Weather Bureau's Master Analysis in Washington. D. C. • For recording motion picture sound tracks on location or in the studio: RCA demonstrated its new equipment at the Society of Motion Picture and Tv Engineers ISMPTE) convention — the PM-72 Portable Magnetic Recorder, using completely transistorized audio components, and weighing 40 pounds. Housed in a formica-covered case, it measures 12x10x20 inches and can be supplied for either 16 or IT1 2 millimeter magnetic film. Random notes: WBTV, Charlotte, N. C, has the first production model of the advanced RCA tv tape recorder, designed to produce interchangeable color or black-and-white tv tapes . . . Mitch Miller was elected, last week, to the board of Bradford Audio Corp., makers of hi-fi and stereo equipment. ^ FOOD INDUSTRY (Cont'd from page 47) the newspaper advertiser may have to supplement his metro buy with suburban papers. With tv or radio he can blanket both city and suburbs. What is local food store advertising worth? Here is part of the picture: Last week's installment reported some 21.000 stores that do better than a §500,000 annual volume (this qualifies them as supermarkets). The average supermarket allocates about 2A3r/, of sales for advertising. \t that rate, these 2.101) supers invest $25.5 million at the local level; this is in addition to what the 350,000 independents spend. National advertising: When air media establishes greater rapport lo callj . -till more national In and ad\ er tising will follow. King believes. The rapport will come when air media presentations arc based on helping the local dealer make a profit. First ii is necessary to undei -land how the retai ler doc make a profit. He either make a profit ""on something oi "with" something. The merchandise he mal es a profit "on" include soft drink-, spices, extracts, waxes and polishes, health and beaut] aids, meats and produce: all carry sufficient mark-up to give him a reasonable profit on each sale. The items he makes a profit "with" are the demand items such as soaps, cereals, baby food, coffee, flour, sugar, tobacco. The profit structure of such items is low, often below the break-even point of over-all store operation. But these are the items that create heavy store traffic: national advertising has pre-sold the consume™ and the retailer needs this traffic to build his over-all sales volume. "Good marketing practice.'" savs King, "demands balanced selling. The equation for profit is the combination selling of fast turning, low gross profit, big dollar volume demand merchandise in conjunction with high-gross profit, slower turning impulse merchandise. The profitminded retailer wants to use national advertising campaigns to his advantage by using merchandise he makes mone\ 'with to stimulate the sale in volume of merchandise he makes money 'on.' " Here is where tv, radio and the national client can use smart merchandising to gel both affection ami support from the retailer. When a national cheese manufacturer develops a *"cheese-and-produce" promotion in its air advertising 1 featuring salads made of cheese, grapes, walnuts, apples, etc. 1 it won't take any persuasion to net the retailer to merchandise it with a whopping gondola or island display, because the retailer is enchanted b) the idea that the cheese advertiser is helping him sell apples or grapes at a 35' < profit. K\er\ \ear. supermarket operators are offered more than Id. 000 promotions; it -land to reason the) can't use them all and will onl) pick the ones that help them personally. So it is up to air media to help national advertisers build the kind of creative campaigns that gel the de-er\ed push at point-of-purchase. "'It takes a lot more than a color page or t\ program to move goods out of a store. ' King contend-. \\ hen a retailer hear about a national ad campaign, his first thought is "S<| how can I tie in right here?" This is what king mean b\ the "local identity" that is needed b) both advertisers and air media. Then, too, there are several types of national brand Food items thai are giving short shrifl to air advertising, and thus present a challenge. I hc-e 68 SPONSOR 30 may 1959