Sponsor (July-Dec 1951)

WILLIAM CHALMERS V. P. & Radio-TV Dir. Grey Advertising Agency, Inc. LIKE MOST "Newsworthy" TV & RADIO EXECUTIVES Mr. Chalmers' LATEST PUBLICITY PORTRAIT IS BY Photographer to the Business Executive 565 Fifth Ave., New York 17— PL 3-1882 by the announcer of the radio station that has been selected by BBDO's timebuyer Mary Ellis. The live copy is supplied by BBDO's account executives Don Velsey and Ed Ney to the manager of the local telephone company, who is familiar with the local situation. The agency men leave open certain blanks in their live copy ("Squeedunk, N. Y. has added . . . new telephones this past year" I ; and the manager fills in with his intimate knowledge. Then the company manager forwards the finished copy to the station announcer. "The virtue of this technique," says Edward L. Monser, advertising manager for the New York company, "is that each local Bell manager throughout the state becomes, in effect, a local advertising manager. He's at the grass roots of the local situation, and can offer his specialized knowledge. Besides, it encourages him to take a more zealous interest in the New York company's radio program." Account executive Velsey adds: "It took some time to get the system working. But now, after two and one-half years of radio broadcasting, the technique is coming along fine. We've gotten amazingly good results with the announcements. Last summer, the company surveyed people at upstate county fairs, and 143 out of 345 replied 'yes' to the question, "Have you ever heard Meribeth Watzon on the radio?'" When it comes to regional radio programing, one of the outstanding jobs is done by the Ohio Bell Telephone Company. The company (via McCannErickson, Inc., Cleveland) spends s:')()(U)00 ;i vcai mi broadcasting, including its share in The Telephone Hour; five-times-a-week participation programing on WEWS, Cleveland; radio announcements throughout the Buckeye State; and TV announcements in Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, and Toledo. Its most notable effort, though, is the venerable, three-times-a-week radio show, The Ohio Story, which has been on the air since January. 1947. (See "They like Mr. Bell— in Ohio," sponsor, 1 November 1947.) As of now, the show blankets the state over these 13 stations: Canton, WHBC; Cleveland, WTAM; Columbus, WBNS; Coshocton, WTNS; Dayton, WHIO; Marietta. WMOA: Sandusky, WI.I.C: Springfield, WIZE: Steubenville, WSTV; Toledo, WSPD; Worthington. WRFD; Youngstown. WKBN; and Zanesville, WHIZ. The program's basic idea is simple — to tell the story of the state, its past and present, to all who live in Ohio. As a consequence, the show does for the Ohio utility on a regional scale what The Telephone Hour does for the Bell System on a national scale. It makes subscribers feel that the Ohio utility is part and parcel of daily Ohio living. Because the program deals so warmly and vividly with such historical Ohioans as Annie Oakley, local schools often ask to play the shows back over their loud speaker systems. WBOE, the Board of Education station of Cleveland, uses selected Ohio Story programs for in-school training; and churches and fraternal orders frequently ask for special disks of Ohio sagas that are close to their heart. The show gets heavy promotion from those corporations whose Ohio roots it dramatizes. When it saluted the greeting card industry, hundreds of post cards went out to stationery stores telling of the broadcast. When a program was conceived around Jack Werst, the Dayton purchaser of the Vanderbilt diamond, every jeweler around Dayton received a circular from WHIO. In addition, ad manager Anson F. Hardman arranges for big newspaper advertisements to tell local areas of shows that are of special interest to them. L. L. Evert, assistant vice president of the Ohio Bell, credits ad manager Hardman, account executive Robert Dailey, commercial writer Don Lindsay and script writer Frank Siedel for the "high quality" of the show. He points out that the program has won scads of awards, ranging from the National Advertising gold medal of 1948 to the Cleveland Advertising Club plaque of 1949 for advertising achievement. "The Ohio Story has been voted each year in the various newspaper polls as the best program originating in Ohio," Evert told SPONSOR, adding proudly, "These also have voted the commercials the most effective and least objectionable." His comment points up keenly the important lesson that commercial advertisers could learn from the broadcasting efforts of the 18 Bell Telephone Companies: when you want to sell a product, yet gain good will from the public, a soft word is often a better way of capturing the listener than sand bagging him. • • • 48 SPONSOR