Sponsor (July-Dec 1950)

Best Buy in SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND WTIC FAMILIES in the WTIC BMB* Area spend each year $59,438,000 " in Drug Stores. This is part of total annual retail sales of $2,317,525,000. ** SUGGESTION — For complete WTIC-BMB Study call Weed & Co. PAUL W. MORENCY Vice President — General Manager WALTER JOHNSON Assistant General Mgr. -Sales Mgr. WTIC's 50,000 Watts Represented nationally by WEED & COMPANY •BMB Kluily No. 2. 1919 •"Copyright Sales Management Survey of Buying Power, May 10th, 1950 MfTICt SOW**** wew *H«VK*<b /MARKET Film laboratory, editing, raw stock __ 175 Recording facilities . 100 Contingency fund I >D Overhead and profit .. 250 Total _ $1,075 Many agencies, like Compton Advertising, Inc., have detailed record sheets for scores of film producers in the East. Midwest, and California (New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are the centers) . Once an advertiser has found a competent producer, he tends to stick with him. Yet even a competent producer can do a better job if his client will follow a few simple procedures. First, have someone present during filming so that unforeseen difficulties can be resolved on the spot to the sponsor's satisfaction. Producers and agencies consider this good "insurance" against complaints made after the film is completed. However, the number of people outside the producer's staff who stand-by should be limited to one or two at most so as not to impede work. Second, leave visualization of an idea to agency men who make this their specialty. Advertising and film production individually are complicated enough; together they are above the average layman's head. Leave creative and technical work to the experts. Third, it doesn't pay to get excited about some unobtrusive part of a film which seems to "spoil" it. One client objected to the hazy outline of a noncompetitive product in the background of a scene in his commercial. His insistence on having this one scene done over cost $325. There are cases where a set may look so unrealistic as to defeat the purpose of the film; these should be done over at any cost. But minor corrections which don't appreciably affect the over-all effectiveness of a film merely raise future bids, make working together less cordial. A remark by Roger Pryor, TV director of Foote, Cone & Belding. neallv sums up the present stale of television film commercials: "We've learned a good deal over the past few years: color correction for black and white filming, simplicity in composition, and tonal values. But our research department would still give you a house and lot if you could give them a set of rules for putting together a commercial. There just aren't any television 'experts' yet, and anyone who claims to be one is misguided. ' * • • MEN, MONEY b MOTIVES {Continued from page 10 I incurable inflammation of perfectionism. He dreamed the dream of a John Henry, wanted to transplant advertising forests and divert advertising rivers. He was fixated to staggering results. After his own preliminary training at the old United States Agency in Toledo, at Lord & Thomas, and J. Walter Thompson. Getchell opened his own shop in 1931. He began by dispatching a three-page letter to 300 national accounts. He got results. Presently he represented Liggett & Myers, Vick's, DeSota, and was on his way. * * * Today Getchell alumni read like a who's who of the profession. Of Foote, Cone & Belding top brass alone there is Fairfax Cone, Emerson Foote, M. C. Franchesi. William E. Berchtold, J. A. Koehler. Also the former president of Foote, Cone & Belding International. Harry A. Berk. The present copj chief at Geyer, Newell & Ganger, Amadee Cole, went through the mill; the highvoltage executive vice president ol Avco-Crosley, W. A. Blees, is another. Spring Mills' ad manager, Joe Swan: Tim Healy of Hiram Walker; Norman Nash of Kudner; Jack Tarlton of the whilom Duke, Day & Tarlton agency; Biow's creative vice president, Louis Thomas; President Anderson Hewitt of Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather; Tom Hughes of National Export Advertising; E. H. Ellis of Cunningham & Walsh were tempered by J. Sterling Getchell. Who else? Nobody has ever compiled the full list. Add Lillian Selb, Leslie Pearl, Andy Armstrong. Tom Everett and Getchell's one-time partner, Orrin Kilhourne, the General Electric distributor for Connecticut and one of Hartford's great personages today. If it had been possible to live with the man, and if the man had lived, he might have had the powerhouse agen<\ of all time. But we now have to wonder whether men of Getchell's stiipe have any place in the great new team-|)la\ media of radio and television? The emotional stress inherent in planning, building and administering modern television entertainments is o| itself so nerve-nagging that to add to natural hazards, costs, unions and sponsor vagaries the mad genius of a Getchell can hardly be imagined and probably could not be abided. * * * 56 SPONSOR