Sponsor (July-Dec 1951)

jgU*. This smiling rrmider with stars in her eyes. For a trousseau is shopping and here's how she buys. A twist of her wrist, her radio dial's what she sets. To WSPD, where she has trust in suggestions she gets. And, after the wedding through years of housekeeping bliss, her daily listening favorites she never will miss. So Sponsors, reach housewives, that we call Madam Buyer Buy time on WSPD, Northwestern Ohio's favorite Town Crier. their own radio commercials, usually their own ads. and foot the bill all alone. This is where the manufacturersall of them — are missing a good bet. As the advertising manager of a large sporting goods store in the East expressed it to sponsor: "I think the manufacturers are asleep at the switch. We don't have the money to do the kind of job we'd like to, but with some help it might be a different story. For example, I'd have a television show featuring sports in action. Using film we'd show hunting dogs working game birds in Virginia one week, maybe follow it up with trout fishing in Maine the next." Most sporting goods retailers and sporting goods departments of large Ad tips to sport goods retailers By Grant Ovington, Grant & Wadsworth, Inc. (Condensed from Sports Age magazine) 1. Point up the store's main appeal in all advertising. If your personality is a strong business point, feature your name — with sporting goods products secondary. If price is your main selling tool, give words like "sare" and "dollars'" top hilling. 2. Advertise consistently, not in spurts. Use an occasional burst, perhaps at the peak of a pre-seasonal sporting goods buying period, to stir 'em up, but remember the old story of "continuing drops of water breaks the rock." 3. Radio and newspaper should complement one another A short radio announcement can call attention to the sporting goods ad in a newspaper, thereby increasing the ad's readership. Similarly, small newspaper ads can be used to promote a radio program, increasing listenership. 4. If you don't keep a direct mail list of sporting goods customers — start one now! It can be used to send out personal invitations to listen to your radio show or visit the store. 5. Don't expect an immediate return from advertising, it builds up gradually. Regular advertising designed to maintain your business at a particular level can be based on the amount of buying you've done. When you plan your buying of sporting goods, you are in effect planning your advertising. stoics would probably consider this ad managers plans too elaborate. But many have gone ahead with less expensive programs that have panned out very well. In the paragraphs thai follow, you'll find examples of successful use of the air by local retailers, proving that radio can be used success fully to move sporting goods. But bear in mind that there are relatively few sporting goods stores on the air because manufacturers do nothing to encourage local ad activity — and because they do little on the air themselves to set an example. SPONSOR hopes that through publication of this information more retailers will be encouraged to tap the wide markets radio and TV can make available to them. One outstanding advertiser is Chicago's mammoth Marshall Field & Company department store which uses a 15-minute weekly radio program over WBBM called Sportsman s Corner to promote its Sports Department. Sportsman's Corner is on every Thursday night from 10:30 to 10:45 p.m., had a special May Pulse rating of 4.0 with a 28% share of audience. Announcer Hal Stark and m.c. Art Mercier make informal conversation about nearby fishing prospects — with Mercier in the role of expert. Both collaborate in putting over the commercials in the relaxed style characteristic of the entire program. To spice up the strictly technical dialogue between announcer and m.c, 66 SPONSOR