Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1960)

top-level research competition petition to any student, school teacher, researcher or practitioner — regardless of his or her field of specialty — in the search for people with new ideas which may lead to new intelligence on tv as a communications medium affecting human behavior. The cash prizes total some $10,000 — $4,000 for the person submitting the best entry, $1,500 for the second, and $250 each for the most distinctive 18 additional plans. Members of the governing committee, however, think most entrants will look at the cash awards as peripheral benefits to the challenge of the problem and the prestige of being selected a "winner." The only full-time advertising men i on the committee are Dr. Milton Sher' man, client service director at Marplan division of McCann-Erickson, who combines the theoretical ap! proach of the educator and researcher I with the practical application of an I advertising and marketing specialist, ! and TvB's research v.p., Dr. Leon Arons. In Sherman's opinion, the move represents "a coming of age in ad vertising research" as well as a "getting together of campus and Lexington Avenue." Each member of the governing committee, he adds, "is interested in the field of visual communications and is an expert in mass communications. Together they represent the best brains in the country. The plan has definite breakthrough possibilities" for the entire television and communications industry. George Huntington, TvB vice president, agrees. The entire program for the competition was sparked by the simple fact that "90 % of the time we in advertising are answering immediate problems. It's very hard to find time for the basic research which may or may not provide answers. "That's why," adds Huntington, "the committee is seeking ideas from the academicians and students. They have the time as well as the inclination for research, and we think they'll be stimulated by this challenge for new ideas. "We think an appeal for these new plans or concepts to scientists and technicians — in what may be obscure fields — may possibly give us some new, startling and significant approaches. Many of the great inventions were not developed by people in the specific field they came from. "Sampling techniques, for example, were developed originally by gamblers and then by agriculturalists, not researchers as such. That's why we're asking cooperation of people in the physical sciences, not just in social sciences such as sociology and psychology." The governing committee chairman is Professor Mark A. May of Yale University, who also is chairman of the U. S. Advisory Committee for Information. He points out that the competition is "unusual in several respects," one of the most important ones being that it is designed "for plans and research strategies, not for accomplished research." Another variant from the usual competition: "We appeal to the scientific community as a whole to lend its creative talent to the solution of the many problems offered by mass communication in today's world." 8-MAN COMMITTEE FINALIZES COMPETITION PLANS SOME OF THE BEST 'BRAINS' in academics join with agency toward scientists land TvB executives in drawing blueprint for this first competition of its hope their origins kind. Anyone may enter a plan, but special effort is being directed developments or SPONSOR • 3 OCTOBER 1960 OR. MILTON SHERMAN, MARPLAN id researchers in "off-beat" areas of special+y ! theories and research will lead to radically ne sight into television's effect on human behavic