Sponsor (July-Dec 1950)

m THRIFTY Coverage of the South's largest Trading Area WHBQ, Memphis, with 25 years of prestige and knowhow, presents its advertisers with a splendid coverage of this market of brilliant potential . . . coverage that brings positive results for every penny invested. And our 5000 watt (1000 night) WHBQ (560 k.c.) is rate-structured to give you RECIONAL saturation at little more than what you'd expect the local rate to be! TELL US OR TELL WEED that you'd like additional facts re our DOUGHBOY [Continued from page 25 i often got dirty and torn from having sacks of feed stacked against them. So he had new modern posters designed in cartoon style. One series shows older animals praising the merits of Doughboy feeds to their young. Other series are takeoffs on famous campaigns in other fields. Example: a hen holding up a fine-looking egg is captioned. "Harriet Hen" has switched to Doughbo) ." He ordered frames for the posters made from Philippine mahogany. Merchants now hesitate to spoil the effect by stacking feed bags against them. With the Cashman proclivity for merchandising, the kind of radio campaign the company embarked on last spring was inevitable. He allocated $160,000 to radio out of a 1950 advertising appropriation of approximately $200,000. A like amount goes for point-of-sale and other promotional material. Cashman and Ray decided on big 'name"" farm service shows on WCCO. Minneapolis, and KXEL, Waterloo, la., both 50 kw giants. They chose two musical programs with big rural followings on WBAY. Green Bay, and WKOW. Madison. These programs not only gave more intense coverage in the areas where Doughboy had dropped (early in August I the successful nine five-minute news and market reports they'd been using: thev reached farther into Doughboy's first belt of expansion in Minnesota. Iowa. Illinois, and upper Michigan. The company had already proved that both early morning and noon farm programs had audiences they could sell. But Cashman believed that the right combination of entertainment and educational farm program would command a nighttime audience. This job was entrusted to the WCCO program department and Larry Haeg. popular farm service director. WCCO came up with a show. Doughboy Country Journal, made to order for the Cashman brand of exploitation. It's built around Larry Haeg and broadcast on Tuesday nights at 9:3010:00. Each week, farm families of one county are saluted, and a "farm famil) of the week"' is singled out for special recognition. ''Takeoff on llie Calvert campaign. I wo top Northwest vocalists. Mar\ Davies and Tony Grise, and a male quartette, "The Doughboys," provide the lighter note of the show. They do no hoe-downs or Western ballads. It's all strictly popular. Doughboy discovered, as other advertisers have before them, that in many areas farm listeners hum and whistle the same tunes that city dwellers do. Exploitation of the show grows out of the programs ingredients. Each week. Haeg interviews the county agent and the editor of the county's leading weekly newspaper. They talk about the area's major farm products, distinctions in the field of agriculture; about events of both historical and current news interest that have occurred in the county. Haeg also interviews a prominent agricultural expert, usually from one of the state agricultural schools in the Northwest, on some timely phase of farming. Two weeks before a county is to be saluted on the program, the promotion wheels begin to turn. Doughboy dealers from the county, the county agent, and the newspaper are invited to a dinner. Here they meet Paul Ray. Haeg, and Charles Sarjeant of the WCCO news and special events staff, who scripts the program. "This gives me another personal contact with our dealers," explains Ray. "and that's important to both of us." Plans are laid at this meeting for publicizing the broadcast throughout the county. Presence of the local editor usually insures a front-page stor\ . including names of the Doughboy dealers present. Dealers buy space in their home town newspapers, plant additional news stories, and mail postcards about the broadcast to every farm family in the area. Banners featuring an 8 by 10 picture of Haeg are placed in dealer stores. Haeg also does a Sunday Country Journal for Doughboy on which he brings listeners up to date on upcoming farm meetings and sums up other farm news of the week. The KXEL program, which started 14 August, is in a different pattern, although it also bases its primary appeal on a popular station farm authority. Dallas McGinnis, KXEL Farm Director. McGinnis broadcasts a 15-minute program Monday through Saturday mornings, 6:15-6:30. Dubbed Doughboy Daily Farm Journal, it provides headline news, market, and weather reports, application of new farm discov 46 SPONSOR