Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1962)

A-C president chats with stars of company-sponsored shows At left, A-C president Leonard H. Lavin (second from 1) discusses fall tv season and Amanda Blake. Milburn Stone of Gunsmoke. At right, V05 Shampoo, an same. However, if you consider it a gamble, with a high risk of loss, you may be reluctant to use it. If you consider it a conservative investment you leap headlong into its use . . . fully confident of rich rewards. This is exactly what AlbertoCulver has done. In fact, this is also what you yourselves have done by investing your time and energies into the medium which has brought such a change in the American economy. There is no one among us here who can deny the tremendous opportunities which television lias made for selling on a grand scale, least of all me. Television has been cited as the single most important factor in the growth of Alberto-Culver. And nothing could be more true. Nevertheless, television alone is not the whole story. It is one part of a basic philosophy that we have at Alberto-Culver . . . a philosophy, I am happy to say, that put to work, has resulted in many successes. Three tenets. The philosophy is a simple one based on three main tenets. They're: 1) marketing of quality products at premium mass prices with distribution in all pos sible outlets; 2) executive staff, small in numbers but extremely capable and 3) a maximum number of advertising dollars concentrated on television. This is a simple formula which, actually, almost anyone cotdtl think of and do. But they haven't and still don't. Why? They shrink away from the obvious. They're afraid to deviate from the accepted paths and take a risk. Don't play it safe. We consistently avoid the temptation to try and play it safe. We don't price a new product at exactly the same level as the competition. We don't cut back our advertising or even allow it to level off when we've made it to the top. We don't waste our time or our money on creating "me-too" products. And we've shortstopped Parkinson's law by hiring the best people and stretching them to the fullest of their capabilities. These are our principles. But unlike others who sound off with many platitudes and then stretch their rules in practice, we stuck to our guns. To show you how these principles can be put to work in the most profitable manner, I shall discuss just one of our products, from the at convention with stars Merv Griffin ( A-C product which has had great succe time that it was only a glint in oi eye, until now. That product our V05 Shampoo. Two years ago, the shampo market was in need of an upgra< ing of its most popular size. It is well-known fact that when you gi\ consumers a range of prices froi which to choose their favore brand, they will invariably choos the medium or lowest priced sizi As a consequence, before we ei tered the market, the most popt lar shampoo was a four-ounce bo tie retailing at 60 cents. The fin thought, it would seem, wotdd b to introduce a new shampoo at 6 cents for three or four ounces . and to offer a range of sizes. But the first thought isn't nece sarily the right one. So V05 Shan poo was introduced in one si/eseven ounces. And it sold at S1.0C Our goals were three in number to capture 10% of the market fof the first year and 20% the second] to make the $1.00 size the inos poptdar si/e, and to help increas the size of the market by 10' ,,. Market vulnerability. As wit] all of our past entries, we first d termined the market vulnerability To do this, we had to explore th< 36 SPONSOR/ 10 DECEMBER 1 96S