Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1960)

getting the answer to how many people did actually hear or view the advertising message." But the "real problem" goes beyond this, he says. "Clients and buyers want to know the audience — the attentive audience to an ad messasre." The word "attentive" in his phrase implies a buying analysis going far beyond a clear-cut 6.8 or 27.4 rating, because it ventures into the quality of the audience itself. "Ratings give you a size figure, not a judgment on what that size means," Paige says. And Pete Matthews of Y&R says, "Generally speaking, we do not have the kind of audience analysis we need." Roger Bumstead of MJ&A spoke out in favor of the broadcast industry initiating its own "Media {Please turn to page 53) IMPORTANT QUOTES FROM THE 6-MAN MEDIA PANEL HUMBOLDT J. GREIG V.p., mgr., station relations, C. J. LaRoche & Co. — "The print boys always have sold circulation while broadcast is trying to evaluate circulation. This places broadcast at a handicap." "We're getting rating services strictly as a competitive tool — one station against the other . . . Radio needs a different rating method. To get that should be an industry job." "Today radio stations are paying more for surveys than they receive from network affiliations." RICHARD S. PAIGE Media mgr., Household Products Div., Colgate-Palmolive Co. — "The real problem is {getting) a workable, agreed-upon definition of audience . . . and this is very tough to get. . . . The differences that arise between the rating services is how they define an audience." "Rating services give you entirely divergent answers for individual positions, but not on a broad average." "To an advertiser, the question is audience: the attentive audience to an ad message." WILLIAM E. MATTHEWS V.P., dir., media relations, Young & Rubicam, Inc. — "A rating service should be used as a relative circulation measurement, not be considered the answer to questions of advertising effectiveness, strength, or appropriateness for a product." "Every (research method) is questionable in some respect. . . ." "Agencies and advertisers have put themselves in a questionable position in alloiving private research organizations to determine the ways in which they receive information l on I the scope and nature of circulation." F LESLIE TOWNE Media dir., Smith-Greenland Co. — "We are probably better off having a small sample size. {If it were bigger), more people would feel that the ratings are even more valid and we'd have more slide rule buying." "{No one in this) room thinks ratings are the one and only standard." "(Radio ratings are confused.) Radio stations themselves are a great deal to blame by not getting together and contributing money towards a reasonable definition of a very rough thing to answer." MARVIN RICHFIELD Media dir., Erwin Wasey, Ruthrauff & Ryan, Inc. — "The probability technique is fundamentally correct and as accurate as a random sampling can be." "We applaud tv rating service competition but we prefer to use one service. I don't feel it necesj sary to subscribe to all that are available." "Almost any timebuyer would prefer to buy by Pulse. I It gives him a higher level of station popularity. I suppose this is the way all of us buy radio today — not adjacencies t but popularity. It's like shooting craps." | i SPONSOR • 3 OCTOBER 1960 ROGER BUMSTEAD Media dir., Eastern Div., MacManus, John & Adams, Inc. — "// the industry got together and started publishing a Media Records for local radio and tv, it might well be a valuable supporting tool for the buyer in arriving at his ultimate decision." "Both the use and the importance of 'overnight' ratings are on the rise. There's a much greater need for instantaneous measurements with tv." "For agencies and advertisers to take charge of directing how rating services run, we have to pay lion's share. , ."