Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

VlB-irO GAME % <$) '^t-C • »* '■'^^■■•:•<.sH■•,i, .,.. Bagging customers V ■ "Play Vid-E-O, the tv personality game. Win up to $100 in cash. It's easy! It's fun! Exciting!" So reads the print ad of a Colonial Store supermarket, thus delivering an extra promotional boost for tv programs and personalities. Vid-E-O may be called a picture version of Bingo and is, in fact, easy to play. The game centers upon a Bingo-like card that, instead of numbers, bears color pictures of 25 different NBC-TV stars — five rows of five each. Players compare their card with a master card, hoping to match five photos in a row. The game was first tested this spring in Detroit, a merchandising mecca where supermarkets look like the average city's lineup of airport hangars. Food Fair stores, the Detroit sponsor of Vid-E-O, signed for the standard minimum run of eight weeks. But results were so strong that they held it over for an additional four. The chain promoted its tv-oriented game with full-page weekly ads in two Detroit papers. Importantly, it also employed "a heavy spot schedule" on WWJ-TV Detroit and WWJ radio. The stations, for their part, supported the game with "stepped up promotion for NBC programs" and, during the first four weeks of the game, aired something like 200 tie in promotion spots. Reports A. Glenn Kyker, promotion manager for the WWJ stations, "It represents the advertising break of the year for NBC in Detroit." Implicit in the Detroit test is the core of the Vid-E-O plan : Subscribing supermarkets bear the cost weight but also receive the most immediate benefits through increased store traffic. Because of the strong tv tie-in, it's virtually impossible for them to promote Vid-E-O without mentioning NBC's fall roster. As a result, the supermarket almost automatically inaugurates a good spot campaign with the local NBC affiliate. Benefiting from increased business, stations in turn give the supermarket good on-air support. And, in fact, a pivot of the game's advertising success is the way the local store is encouraged to use radio and/or tv spots: As part of its own program promotion, the station will put on the air, free, generalized announcements about the game, such as this one: "This is Lome Greene of Bonanza inviting you to play the new NBCTV personality game — Vid-E-O. Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon and myself are just a few of the many NBC personalities featured in the Vid-E-O game." The supermarket reaches for an adjacent spot, telling where and how to play the game locally. Since some station promos arc 20 seconds long, the supermarket that buys an adjacent 10-second spot receives, in effect, a 30-second spot for the 10-second price. And what is NBC's role for the harvest of program-and-pcrsonality publicity that its fall lineup receives? The network is happy to clear use of show titles and performer names, as well as supply much of the promotion material. Besides the color photos of some 50 stars, this also includes 13 taped promos (like the Lome Greene example) and 50 slides of the participating stars for use on tv. In addition, the network has prepared 10-second and 20-second audio copy for use either on radio or video. Thus, the coordinated efforts of all three — the supermarket, local affiliate and NBC network — focus on the national tv program, undoubtedly much to its sponsors' credit. As mentioned, the rules of playing Vid-E-O are as easy as advertised: (1) The housewife-player is permitted to pick up just one game card (free) each time she visits her local supermarket. The more visits per week, the more cards she collects and the greater her chances of winning a prize. Itslii k 14 40 SPONSOR