Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1959)

GET ''BIG IDEAS'' IN RADIO/TV the personality's own delivery behind the item. But we also were concerned that all the basic product promises should be included in each commercial. How solve it? A cinch, after some solid two-headed creative thinking (sure, every creative man has two heads — his own and one like the customer he's trying to reach). We produced a series of unique, catchy 20-second film spots which covered the major product points. We instructed the personalities to use a film in each minute participation, then fill out the 40-seconds-plus with their own live pitch. So, even if a performer rambled away from the basic copy platform, we knew that the vital points were covered by the 20-second film insert. There it is — double value from the live-plus-film double gimmick. A dimension within a dimension. Now we're working on a triple dimension within the minute dimension. New. better ideas are being built and reported every day. Like this one . . . We sought a way to sell a slimming-aid product, using radio. "Oh, brother." you might say, "all this world needs is another slimming product!" A serious subject to the overweights. But we figured that with everybody so serious about cutting calories in selling reducing items, we might gain by being different. Being different — the key to so man\ outstanding successes. We decided to use humor, but with a twist. We'd show characters being so serious about losing weight — that their excess seriousness would become funny. And we'd be centering right on the subject and product. This w ay : One commercial burlesqued a quiz program — "rigged" but not rigid. When the quizmaster tried to ask a question of an irritable plump lady, her retort was, "The onl\ question I'm interested in is how to lose weight!" Right from those opening seconds, every listener who was concerned about slimming down was in vohed with the commercial. The bickering between c]uizmaster and contestant was right on target — howto take off pounds with the sponsor's product. Another commercial in the series was a direct take-off of a popular mystery program, solving "The Case Of The Missing Calories!" Again, the dead-pan hero and the deadserious plot revolved about the one big point — how easy it was to miss calories by using this product. that were onl\ at the licginniiig of new, different, more effective Big Ideas in ever\ phase of using air media. I note just a few outstanding examples: A store demonstration of a product transformed exactly to tv film. A commercial without words but with plenty of selling power. A spot based on refusing to name the product. Another successful series hitched WELDING Ideas often calls for "added dimension," says Baiter, member of Donahue & Coe exec staff and author of "Casebook of Successful Ideas for Advertising and Selling." Doubleday In planning the commercials we pinned to the wall these two cardinal rules: 1. Be funn). but concentrate on what the product will do for the listener. 2. Double-check on how well the gags project the product benefits, and not on the gags for gags' sake. P.S. When results started coming in from the test cities, as the saying goes, the sponsor laughed all the way to the bank. Not us. We were too busy frowning over the creation of new comic ideas. It's apparent more than e\-er to me to refusal to use the product. How sex appeal can be sold in eight seconds. One-minute adventures which boomed sales of an also-ran brand. The list in the creative use of broadcast media is endless — all sparks for the best Big Ideas, your Big Ideas yet to come. Unquestionably, miracles are just waiting to happen everywhere in the world of advertising and business. AH you ha\e to do is make them happen. Because it's common knowledge that there are no boundaries to energetic, practical, reasoned creative thinking. ^ SPONSOR 5 DECEMBER 1959 .S9