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EDITORIAL
Continued
out recently to the ANA (see Commercial Commentary 19 November), is that this kind of pressure leads inevitably to a weakening of mass media advertising values.
There isn't an editor or broadcast program chief in America today who isn't subject to an almost unbearable barrage from public relations image-builders who want to cadge free time and space to promote their own special interests.
And when this barrage is backed, as it is by GMA, with the ugly, bullying, implied threat of advertising cancellations, it is not always easy to resist.
But it is absolutely imperative— not only for reasons of self-respect and integrity, but for the advertisers' own ultimate good— that the resistance be vigorously and constantly demonstrated.
In any mass medium the primary responsibility of an editorial or program executive is to deliver an audience— a specific, sizeable, interested, even enthusiastic audience.
He owes this not only to himself and to his owners, but especially and most importantly to his advertisers.
And the only way he can be certain of building, holding, and stimulating this audience is by constantly seeking out its real interests, and discovering new ways to challenge and appeal to it.
He cannot hope to do this if he turns his medium into a house organ for special interests. He cannot do it with a policy of accommodation and appeasement.
He must continually fight against those who say, "This is what I want your public to read or hear." He must stand firm in providing what his public itself wants to receive, and digest.
Otherwise, he betrays himself, and inevitably betrays his advertisers.
Who does Willis speak for?
In presuming to act as spokesman for the grocery manufacturers industry, Paul Willis, as president of GMA, seems to have impressive credentials.
But sponsor wants to know— does Willis really have the specific backing of the companies which make up the Association's membership?
Among these are such important tv advertisers as Procter 8c* Gamble, General Foods and General Mills.
Is Willis speaking for Howard Morgens, president of P&G, Charles G. Mortimer, chairman of General Foods, and Charles H. Bell, chairman of General Mills?
sponsor has addressed personal copies of this editorial to each of these gentlemen and asked them specifically whether Willis, in his pressure tactics on mass media, reflects their sentiments. Or is he merely a harmless bureaucrat, speaking wildly and violently out of turn?
If the GMA president actually represents the viewpoint of leading GMA member companies, then Ave believe these companies should themselves be attacked.
If he doesn't, then he should be reprimanded by his membership. t^
SPONSOR/26 November 1962