Sponsor (Nov 1948-June 1949)

programing or selective campaigns at fairlj specifii groups, rather than shooting at the broad target and hoping to get gas-and-oil buyers in sheer weight of numbers. I lii— accounts mainly for the wide two programing types t hat are high in nude appeal, namely, sports and news, bj selective and regional users. Almost the lone exception to this is the Signal Oil Co. of California. which makes a compromise with the fact that approximate 1\ <'!.">' < of the mil nil purchases in the country are made h\ men. Signal has been sponsoring for the past two years or so the high-rated U histler on the Columbia Pacific Network. \ suspensetype whodunit. II histler attracts an audience that is mostly male, while being a show that lends itself well to promotion to dealers and to consumers. The primarily masculine appeal of network and selective sports lies in back of their extensive use. year after year, by such leading regional sports sponsors as Atlantic Refining in the Fast, the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana in the Midwest, the Humble Oil Co. of Texas in the Southwest, and the Tide Water Associated Oil Co. in the Mountain and Pacific regions. These firms make a real promotional field da\ out of then sports sponsorship. Since there are just a handiul oi >p<ut> events that command national interest. the biggest interest in sport. is in big regional sports events. The oil firms who are selling their product through sponsorship of these events have a promotional natural on their hands. Giving awav football maps, prediction charts, score cards, and other sports promotional material at service stations is just one way of reaping the harvest of this tremendous interest. Stations are decked out with posters and displays, local contests with a sports theme are handled by the dealers, and the results are evident in greatly increasing sales of gas and oil. At the same time, the sponsorship ol sports establishes favorable public relations for the oil firm. Still the most widely-used form of regional and selective air selling in the oil industry is newscasting. Like sports, the basic reason for the extensive use of news is that it is a program type high in appeal to male listeners, although the ratio of malefemale members of the average oilsponsoi eil new scasl does not go as high as the 85-15% ratio that actuallv docs STUMPED! She says she'll marry me but refuses to leave town to go on honeymoon. Says she won't risk missing her favorite KXOK programs. What'll I do? Anxious Dear Anxious: No reason why your bride should miss ANYTHING on her honeymoon. Go on your honeymoon anywhere from west-central Missouri to Indiana, from Iowa to Arkansas. KXOK's powerful signal can reach her any hour of the day or night, even into Tennessee and Kentucky. Any John Blair representative will gladly help set your itinerary. KXOK, St. Louis 630 on your dial the buying of gas-and-oil products. 1 he turn that sets the pace and is the most successful user oi newscasts is Esso Standard Oil (See: Esso News Reporter, sponsor. March, 1947). Esso opened the wav for the whole field of radio news sponsorship in October, L935, when it made a deal with United Press for a series of five-minute news summaries that were the foundation of the now-famous £550 Reporter newscasts currentlv heard on 42 stations in the 18-state l.sso marketing territory that runs from Maine to Louisiana. E-s;> backs this up with periodic selective campaigns in TV, sponsors regional sportsca>ls in Arkansas, and promotes the whole works so aggressively to dealers that todav it is an integral part of the marketing system of Esso. So well has Esso done this job that several hundred Esso dealers are on the air with their own shows and announcement schedules, a higher percentage of the total number of dealers, incidentally, than for am other major oil firm. The Esso formula of newscasting has been used by oil firms at all levels of broadcast advertising. Today, five major oil firms are using network radio newscasts to tell their sales story. Seven firms I in addition to Esso's Esso Reporter) are using newscasts. in varying amounts, on a selective basis. \t the network level. Pure Oil Co. sponsors H. V. Kaltenborn (MWF) and Richard Darkness (TuTh) on some 30 NBC stations, and supplements this with newscasts on a selective basis in two additional market-. The Skellv Oil Co. goes alter earlymorning audiences with MU.'s World Sews Roundup on 23 stations, mostly in the Midwest. The Sun Oil Co.. for years associated with radio news sponsorship (Lowell Thomas 1 . bankrolls the nightly Three-Star Extra on 34 \|'.i stations in Eastern Seaboard cities. ( >n the othei side of the nation. the I nion Oil Co., an aggressive < ali fornia advertiser, uses Fleetwood Lawton nighilv to reach Don Lee news audiences, and uses selective radio and I \ to sell everything from its "Royal Triton" oil I" its annual report, via I \ films. The Richfield Oil Company's Western Division sponsors a nightly news roundup on the \l>< Pacific Net work, and has used periodic announcement campaigns in radio. In selective broadcasl advertising. the biggest newscasl usei is the Shell Oil Co., which s] sors 15-minute 46 SPONSOR