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For Profitable Selling
WDEL
WILMINGTON
D E L AWA R E
WEST
EASTON
PENN SYIVANI A
WKBO
HARRISBURG
PENN SYIVANI A
WORK
YORK
PENN SYIVANI A,
WRAW
READING
LP EN N S YIVAN I A,
WGAL
LANCASTER
PENNSYLVANIA
Represented by
ROBERT MEEKER
ASSOCIATES
Ioj Angeles New York
San Francisco Chicago
STEINMAN STATIONS
31r. Sponsor
Richard X. Harris*
President Toni, Inc. (Div. of Gillette Safety Razor Co.), Chicago
Eleven years alter he bought a collapsing cosmetic firm for $5000, 36-year-old, rotund, verbose, genial Richard Neison Harris miraculously transformed it into the nation's leading manufacturer of cold-wave home-permanent kits, the Toni Companv, and sold it to the Gillette Company for $20,000,000 in January 1948.
It was in 1943 that the Yale graduate decided to make home permanent-wave kits. He spent $25,000 to market his Rol-Wave product and sold it for 25c a box. Rol-Wave flopped. Harris attributes this to psychological resistance on the part of women, claiming that they balked at buying something for 25c which ordinarily sells for $10 to $15.
In 1944 he again invaded the home-permanent market. With $1000 "Wishbone" Harris (the nickname stems from his craving for turkey and chicken wishbones ) started the Toni Company and made an improved product with a fixed price of $1.25. Retailer reluctance to add any new kits to already overstocked shelves almost prevented Toni from reaching the public. During this critical period, super-salesman Harris personally visited obdurate retailers and battered them into submission with an overpowering pitch about the advantages of his product. The following year Toni had snared 35' c of the expanding home-permanent market, as sales soared to the million-dollar mark.
Toni began using radio in 1946 with a series of spot testimonials in selected areas. During the last six months of 1946. sales on the West Coast, where Toni was using radio as its major advertising medium, leaped 300' < . Pleased with the results of its radio campaigns, the company in 1947 allocated S2.000.000 of its $3.500.000> ad budget to broadcast advertising. With sales continuing to skyrocket, Toni spent $4,000,000 to sponsor four network shows in 1948. By the end of the year 851 of all kit users became Toni converts. This \ear the firm is again expected to spend S4.000.000 of an estimated $7,000,000 advertising budget for radio. Currently being sponsored bv Toni are Give and Take and the soaper This Is \ora Drake.
*Seen, left, with his brother and executive v. p.. Irving Harris
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SPONSOR