Sponsor (Nov 1948-June 1949)

Hudson came to radio first in the Boston market, as a trial rim in L945. The agency, after testing copy themes (via selective announcements) and preliminary premium pull in Boston, switched from straight announcement broadcasting to programing, and was read\ to tackle the vvhcelhorse of the Hudson selling operation . . . New York. Hudson napkins are bought primarily by women, so the program had to have a high feminine factor in its audience composition. The straight, '"reason-why" copy used was aimed at women, and emphasis was divided between plugging the idea of paper napkins on the dinner table and stressing the quality, appearance, and disposability of the Hudson brand in particular. Hudson's first real program purchase was newscaster Henry Gladstone on New York's WOR. Since the program ran on a daily 10-10:30 a.m. basis and had a preponderance of women in its audience, it was a good buy for Hudson. Like Peter Paul Candy, Hudson bought only a thriceweekly portion of the program, in order to reach 90% of the average weekly audience (the daily turnover in regularly-scheduled newscasts is only 10%) at 50% of the regular weekly costs for the whole Monday-Saturday strip. Since Hudson's initial use of radio, the air-selling has been on a straight basis for 40 weeks of the year. The remaining 12 weeks (actually the last three weeks of every 13-week cycle) are devoted to a self-liquidating premium campaign. The agency has found that the premium cost-per-inquiry is the cheapest form of forced-sampling of a full-sized package that can be obtained, usually running around 18^ per return in selective broadcasting. This makes it considerably cheaper to reach new users for a packaged product by using broadcast sampling methods than by using other media. (Other average costs: magazines — $1:17; newspapers — 22<* to 36^). It is far cheaper than free sampling on a doorto-door basis (either through the use of products or by couponing). The premiums that Hudson and most of the other premium-using clients at Duane Jones use usually cost the housewife 25£ and a boxtop, and run to such things as jewelry, kitchen gadgets, knives, housewears and so forth. The premiums on the Gladstone show, and on the other Hudson radio operations in the East, pulled well from the start. Out of every 10,000 premium returns that Hudson gets, the paper firm and the agency figure that 5,000 are from people sampling the product for the first time. Of this 5,000 group, half will stay on as loyal product users, and the other half will drift back to being members of the ■'floating'' market, that is generally estimated to be around 30% of the total market for packaged products. By 1946, Hudson's radio had been extended to most of the pi incipal markets in its distribution area along the Eastern Seaboard. The programing axis -till revolved around newscasts I unlike Peter Paul, the country's leading user of newscasts on a selective basis, Hudson had their newscasters doing the Hudson commercials from the beginning instead of hiring a separate announcer) . But in L946, Hudson made a basic change in their programing approach. They switched to a transcribed soap opera, Aunt Mary. that had done a successful job on the West Coast for another advertiser. The Duane Jones organization feels that serial dramas are among the most efEective vehicles in broadcasting. SURE, some Chicago stations can be heard in South Bend . . . but the audience LISTENS to VVSBT! There's a whale of a big difference between "reaching" a market and covering it ! Some Chicago stations send a signal into South Bend — but the audience listens to WSBT. No other station — Chicago, local, or elsewhere — even comes close in Share of Audience. Hooper proves it. 5000 WATTS 960 K C PAUL H RAYMER COMPANY NATIONAL REPRESENTATIVE 25 APRIL 1949 37