Sponsor (July-Dec 1949)

PUBLICITY (Continued from page 29) for position for their clients' advertising, and that's a big enough burden for the actual expenditure in a publication to carry. Agency pressure for '"editorial cooperation" has been at a very low ebb for a number of years. Only fringe organizations use the advertising big stick to get publicity, and their success isn't outstanding, to say the least. Publicity budgets run from as little as $1000 a year to the yearly $250,000 that was reputed to have been incorporated in the original Jack BennyLucky Strike contract. Lack of publicity on a program is also said to have lost agency accounts, and Jack Benny's blast against Young & Rubicam is a long-remembered example of what can happen to an important program handled by an important agency for an important client. (The client at that time was General Foods.) Each year, The Billboard polls newspaper radio editors on what they think of agency publicity departments. (The poll also checks network and independent press agents.) Agencies do not stand too high in the graces of the editors. The leaders are generally Young & Rubicam, J. Walter Thompson, N. W. Ayer, Kenyon & Eckhardt, and Benton & Bowles. Other agencies break into the top ranks in some years, but these five are consistently in the running. Newspaper editors are able to evaluate only the releases of the agencies and the direct services they render. The full scope of a Hal Davis (Kenyon & Eckhardt) operation is seldom appreciated by an editor. Hal is an exploitation man with the ability of selling his clients and his agency executives on taking chances. When he decided to fly some calfs over to start a new breed of cows in Greece, the idea was full of dynamite. It could have all blown right up in the Borden company's face. K&E's publicity operations also extend into the realms of product introduction and promotion. Amazo hasn't had a big network program as yet; its use of radio advertising has been restricted to selective broadcasting. That doesn't stump the K&E boys. They had Boy Scouts, Lions and other luncheon clubs, men with and without distinction, make Amazo in 30 seconds' time. The women's directors of sta tions on which Amazo advertising was placed sent wires with a bottle of milk and a box of Amazo to their top fans. TV programs presented the dessert. In this case, broadcast advertising was part of the promotion. It was not strictly a case of promoting radio, but of radio promoting a product and an agency proving its ability to make use of radio's promotional scope. Kenyon & Eckhardt's operation is unique in radio publicity departments of advertising agencies. Another agency that does a topflight job of press agentry for radio programs, although the publicity in some cases has not enabled the agency to hold an account or a program, is N. W. Ayer. Wauhillau LaHay heads the radio publicity department of this agency and can do either a creative routine job, as she does for the Bell Telephone Hour, or a flair job as she did for Rexall with Jimmy Durante. Miss LaHay's constant follow-through (she's an ex-radio editor herself and is assisted by Dorothy Doran, another ex-editor) has earned kudos from the men and women she services. Harry Rauch (Young & Rubicam) and Al Duranty (J. Walter Thompson) head publicity departments of two of radio's top agencies. Because Duranty has traveled and met most of the editors he services he stands high in their regard. Rauch for years has had top programs to handle and he does a good consumer-press public relations jobs. Both agencies are conservative, although Y&R's operation (Bureau of Industrial Relations) is an important part of the agency's service to clients. Many agencies hedge their responsibilities by hiring outside press agents to work under the supervision of the agency executive in charge of public relations. That frequently overcomes agency reluctance to take chances. The independent press agent takes the chance. If he comes through — the agency is sitting on top. If he fails, he's fired. It was the independent press agent's overstepping his authority that made all the difficulties. Publicity is not a science. Press agentry is not an art. For the record no one knows what it is, but it's the life blood of showbusiness, and a new product without a touch of the theater in its presentation just doesn't make the grade these days. Publicity, promotion, exploitation are three keystones not only to building a broadcast program, but also to insuring product success. + * + VACATION (Continued from page 34) to ten minutes and broadcast over WLAW. It's aired on the following Saturday each week. Don McNeill's ABC Breakfast Club is a five-a-week broadcast with a well established audience over WLAW. Allen-A's choice of nine a.m. on Saturday was predicated on holding McNeill's audience with a similar type of program for ten minutes and reaching an extra audience via a newscast for the last five minutes. It's worked. After the first WLAW broadcast 20 couples called Allen-A for reservations. His current boadcasts are geared to Allen-A's being booked solid during 1950. Other resorts around New Hampshire are reportedly 15-25% off of last year's bookings. Allen-A is doing all the business the resort can hold. It's Albee's sampling technique that has produced roundly out in California. Each Sunday morning Bill Baldwin and Ruby Hunter interview guests who are having an out-of-doors breakfast at the Old Hearst Ranch in Pleasanton. The guests and Baldwin and Hunter play quiz games and generally have a good time. The following Sunday at 9:30 a.m. the recording is broadcast over KSFO in San Francisco. There's solid evidence that plenty of vacationers from the Bay region go down to the ranch to be on the program. Sampling isn't the only productive means of selling the vacationer. The many programs originating at airports and union stations, however, are also forms of sampling and the thrill of hearing well-known personalities being greeted upon their arrival at different ports and stations have speeded millions on their way — to the ticket windows. Very often it hasn't been a great radio station that has done the job. but a well-situated new outlet. One such is KXRX in San Jose. This 1000watt station came to the air in 1948, not a propitious time for a new outlet, for business started sliding for broadcasters in late '48. Lake Tahoe is an all-year-'round resort which appeals to California vacationers. The Chamber of Commerce bought (or was sold) all the time on KXRX from midnight to 6 a.m. All night long, the announcer sells the merits of the resorts in the central High Sierras. The audience during the wee hours is difficult to check. (Please turn to page 56) I AUGUST 1949