Sponsor (Nov 1946-Oct 1947)

Lee doesn't have an advertising allowance for dealers, but they spend their own cash for newspaper space to associate themselves with the Pearson-Lee broadcasts It gives them a news lead for their ads than the best . . . don't take less than a Lee," and the "pre'Shaped" hat, "the crease stays in" appeal. Both of these made sense to the male listener. Pearson is third among the programs having at least one man listening to each listening set. Only the "boxing bouts" with a 1.34 man per set and Walter Winchell with a 1.13 per receiver top the 1.10 of Pearson. (Audience composition figures are from the December 30 Program Hooperatings report.) Only 19 of the 224 programs rated achieve one man per listening set or better. Radio has not only done a top job for Lee but it has also given Lee money to spend in other media. Lee will spend $700,000 for advertising during 1947 of which $570,000 will go for broadcasting. It will use Life for the first time once a month ($100,000) and $30,000 in Time. The money it's using in Life and Time — $130,000 — is a little less than twice its entire advertising budget in 1935. A comparative idea of what the hat industry aside from Lee spends for advertising is indicated by the fact that the Hat Corporation of America spent around $200,000 in 1946 and Mallory Hat Company (now part of the Hat Corporation) spent about the same amount. John B. Stetson, the dollar volume leader, spent $175,000. Lee will start competing with the higher class range of Stetson this year with its Disney (up to $40) Hat. Lee's Disney budget will be $125,000 and it will be spent entirely in Time and the New Yorker. The appeal of Disney will be to the man "to whom price is secondary." Weintraub's selling of Frank H. Lee on sponsoring Drew Pearson, a man with a yen for crusading, plus network and client cooperation and a selling campaign that never got off the track, took an also-ran men's hat and put it on more heads than any other hat in 1946. What radio did for Lee prompted Bill Weintraub to say at a dinner which he gave American Broadcasting Company executives, following the Atlanta broadcast, "I wonder, Mark Woods (ABC president), why your sales staff hasn't sold more men's apparel manufacturers. If ABC can build a business like Lee — it can do it for any men's product." The answer as to why there aren't more men's apparel sponsors on the networks isn't simply failure of the networks to sell them. Most men's furnishings are not marketed nationally. Hats generally are, but men's shoes and clothing for instance are national only to a limited degree. Before any product becomes a prospect for network and national radio advertising it must have coast-to-coast distribution. That's the first problem, though one that's being changed. Plans are before a number of manufacturers of men's products which indicate that with increasing and faster transportation facilities, it may be sufficiently economical now to distribute nationally. Once the manufacturers have branched out more generally into national distribution the next problem is to develop shows like Walter Winchell, Meet Me at Parky's, Gene Autry,and the other 16 network programs that catch and hold at least one man per listening set. Shows like The Shadow (January sponsor), out to sell coal to men, have done this — there are a number of programs that have been built to catch the master of the house. (Surprising though it may be, Hour of Charm is one of these.) That there haven't been more shows built for men i> FEBRUARY, 1947 ,o. t^""' ■\w* DRLM' I I IP ' WFDF A. M. DAVISON CO. ■ ■ R Ham — LS2&-1 S, -M.iww STREi I ^AAM-A/v^/ ,W '—"" "•"-""" VW'vVM/M/