Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1961)

Mass., the Cott message was delivered by WWLP (TV), 10 times per week, in the form of 60's and 20's, with an occasional I.D. Cott stretched its tv dollar over the campaign's full length in Pennsylvania by taking a week's hiatus every week or two within its schedules on WTAE-TV, Pittsburgh, and WFBGTV, Altoona. The former aired 11 spots a week, mostly minutes, and the latter eight per week, mostly minutes, both during seven staggered weeks. In nearby Ohio, the Cott message was carried by WKBN-TV, Youngstown, 10 times per week, mostly minutes, for the entire 13 weeks. The new Cott media strategy calls for heavy concentration in the peak selling seasons, spring-summer and the year-end holidays. In the past, the bottler's newspaper-promoted price reduction deals were at their heaviest in peak selling seasons, but there was more exposure in the offperiods. "We feel the reach and impact of our spring-summer tv campaign has built a sales momentum that will carry through the fall when we're off the air, more than making up for any advertising we might have run during that period under the old system," states Whitney. This momentum will get a giant boost Thanksgiving through New Year's thanks to spot tv outlays equal to or greater than the spring-summer push, with commercials playing up the Cott mixers (ginger ale, club soda, Half and Half grapefruit and lemon), in conjunction with the year-end imbibing season. While Cott looks for universality in audience composition, the housewife looms as the prime target. Most of Cott's business involves the quart bottles, which are considered familysize, so the housewife's importance is uppermost. On the other hand, Cott is endeavoring to branch out more and more into the smaller bottle field, so the company welcomes the younger element in the tv audience. Children are featured in the commercials for new cherry cola and the fruit flavors, for somewhat different reasons. They order a lot of cherry cola drinks at soda fountains, so are expected to take to the bottled version. As for fruit flavors, the children's presence in the commercial is calculated to boost the feeling, prevalent among average housewives that fruit flavored beverages are healthful for their children. As for the commercial devoted to mixers (ginger ale, club soda, Half and Half grapefruit and lemon, etc.), it opens with adults doing the cha cha. Mixers of course call for a more sophisticated scene. The motif of the Cott commercials is action, and plenty of it — to lend an air of excitement and fun to the products. Thirty scene changes per minute are par for the course. The opening 15 seconds in each minute spot is devoted to action backed by upbeat music, with narration held off until product shots are introduced subsequently. Scene changes are done in time to the music, as are phrases and individual words of voice-over copy. Dominant in the music is the unique sound of chromatic drums. The music is scored differently for each of the three commercials. Rock and roll provides the background for the commercial introducing the new cherry cola, expected to have special appeal to the young folks. A modern popular music score accompanies the fruit flavor spot, while for the mixers the rhythm is cha cha. Scenes during the opening 15 seconds of all three commercials depict the bottom half of people in action. For cherry cola, the spot opens with kids' legs pedaling bicycles moving fast. They wheel into a driveway, jump off of their bikes, race across the lawn into the door of a house, and tramp into the rumpus room, where they sit on the floor around a coffee table. Then comes shots of cherry cola on a tray in the foreground, and the voice-over narration begins. There are various scenes of product pouring, and a soda fountain scene during which the announcer states that cherry cola, long a soda fountain favorite, now is in bottles. The fruit flavor beverage commercial opens with the feet and legs of a youngster running in time to the music, up to a Ninth Ave. type fruit stand. His hand reaches out and touches an orange. Out comes the storekeeper, hands on hips, surveying the child defiantly. When the child accidently causes an orange to roll down the carefully arranged mountain of fruit, he looks gingerly at the fuming merchant and takes off as fast as legs can carry him. Only then does the narration begin, with video devoted to pourings of the product and shots of large quantities of fruit rolling along. ^ tv commercials contrast with old print-promoted price deals riding, and dancing accompanied by upbeat musical baclcgound. Narration is withheld until after the brisk opening, coming in with the product shots (r). Kids appear in the fruit flavor and cherry cola spots, while adults doing the cha cha serve as opener for more sophisticated mixer plugs SPONSOR 16 OCTOBER 1961 31