Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1959)

HOMES GO UP FASTER WITH TV WWLP-TV. Springfield) ran like this: (ll Business men were pitched on a 7:05 p.m. news segment as the first step in fusing appeals to the contractor and the consumer. (2) Women were the primary target of a Sunday afternoon movie schedule. (3) Allfamily pitch was made in announcements between 10 and 11 p.m. To dramatize the fact that a Hadco Home could be entirely assembled by a contractor between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m.. WRLP-TV shot a series of pictures every half hour while a home was under construction. Run as slides under copy, the pictures made it possible to tell a start-to-finish story impressive to both consumer and contractor. Hadco salesmen immediately reported an upswing of interest from contractors and their willingness to hear the whole stor\. This, accompanied by an upsurge in orders, convinced Hadley and his Hadco division manager Harold LaValley, that the campaign should be continued, but with increased emphasis on their indirect pitch to contractors. The movie and announcement schedules were dropped and the concentration stepped up on news and sports coverage with their predominantly male appeal. In the revised schedule the news buy (a world news segment at 11:05 p.m. I is used primarily for consumer appeal, and carries the building sequence slides. The sports show (15 minutes at 6:30 p.m.) uses mock-ups. floor plans, other paraphernalia to answer questions contractors might find unanswered by the building sequence spots (on the late news show). Hadley stresses that the pitch to contractors, of course, is not an outand-out sell to them exclusiveh. Usually, the approach is via the consumei's interests. For example: "Hadley Lumber Co. has found that many building contractors are switching from the slow conventional wa\ of building to the Hadco System which uses component parts. There are two sood and sound rea sons for this. One is this: the $500to-S1.500 savings in the completed cost of the house is a big factor. Two. and this is the best reason for their thinking: prospective new home owners are asking for a Hadco Home." Getting down to specifics, cop\ emphasizes "100 floor plans." via a window mock-up to show fingertip operation, factory adjusted or similar details consumers aren't usually concerned with. Hadley also uses cop\ in the sports show to stress that both completed as ucll as hall-coiiiiilclcd homes can be built \>\ Hadco contractors. Copy also highlights increasive consumer demand for Hadco Homes, an important poini to stress with the trade. In late summer, Hadley had to cancel his tv schedule, not from lack of results, but because Hadco Homes, after three months of the revised approach, had more orders than thev could fill for the rest of 19.59. ^ PITCH TO CONSUMER emphasized speed, economy of construction, shown dramatically in series of slides taken between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. Copy for sequence, pictured here, stressed ease of assembling and low cost of finishing home yourself. This involved risk of alienating contractors unless benefits to them were emphas'zed, too. Solution came in abandoning familydirected programing, concentrating in news and sports to reach man of family and contractor, stressing advantages to both PITCH TO CONTRACTOR is largely indirect, answering questions which this consumer-directed slide series leaves unanswered, i.e. quality details consumers are not usually concerned with. Mock-ups. floor plans, etc. confined to commercials in early evening sports show, demonstrate these points. Late news show concentrates on consumer alone. Quality pitch convinced contractors, made them receptive to increased consumer demand already created by the tv schedule SPONSOR 5 DECEMBER 1959