Sponsor (July-Dec 1951)

510 MADISON (Continued from page 8) You and your staff are to be commended on a splendid piece of work. It deserves a spot in everyone's reference library. One small suggestion: You might have added point No. 25 to the "Sponsor Check List" on how to use broadcast advertising — the intelligent use of thorough audience research. Every sponsor who values his advertising dollar must watch like a hawk the coverage and popularity of his shows, the size and dimensions of his audience, the week-to-week trends, the home characteristics, and the performance of competitors and opposition. Without audience measurement, the sponsor is paddling a canoe in a thick fog. Murry Harris Director of Public Relations A. C. Nielsen Company Neiv York GEM BLADE VOLUME Possibly as a matter of no moment to you, but we can scarcely let your article "How a gay blade sharpens razor sales" go unchallenged. According to our latest figures, and we have every reason to believe they are accurate, Gem does about 11% of the razor blade dollar volume. A. Craig Smith Vice President Gillette Safety Razor Co. Boston • SPONSOR (7 May 1931) slated that all American Safety Razor Corporation products (including Gem, Silver Star, Blue Star and Treet) accounted for 30% of blade sales; Gillette for 45%. Gem was not broken down individually. WABB'S CAMPAIGN SUCCESS The story in "Roundup" (SPONSOR 7 May; p. 42) on WABB's Cookbook promotion is fine. However, we would like to clarify two points: 1. WABB is not acting as a distributor for the Consolidated Book Publishers in the usual sense. The campaign is not that of the publishers, but strictly WABB's. All costs, the "selling" air copy and promotional "angles" are WABB's. While it is true, HEADACHE? u»v film spot problems to TELEFILM Inc. Hollywood (28) Calif, since 1 938 from the publishers' standpoint, that the objective is the sale of the cookbooks, WABB signed to stage the promotion to demonstrate its ability to sell food and allied items. Hooper, ConIan, et al, notwithstanding, we believe sales mean more to an advertiser than high sounding phrases and exaggerated claims that are next to impossible to prove. With 15 weeks and 160,000 sales (by actual count) behind us, we believe that we have made our point. 2. According to the publishers, this is the first such promotion by a radio station in the country. For many years the cookbooks have been a newspaper promotion package. For this reason, it was necessary for WABB to sell the publishers on the idea that a radio station could also use it as a sales tool. The success of the promotion in Mobile, which has amazed the publishers, has done two things: ( 1 ) Demonstrated that radio is, more than ever before, a very potent factor in selling. ( 2 ) Opened up an entirely new field for the publishers. For the advertiser, the success of the WABB cookbook promotion underscores the importance of considering more than a listener's survey when ordering a program or a spot schedule. WABB has always contended that it was tops in the Mobile market in food sales because we knew our listeners . . . we knew our market. Now we have the $ale$ figures to prove it ! ! ! Phil Forrest Promotion Manager WABB Mobile, Ala. MR. SPONSOR ASKS {Continued from page 49) product. The pure entertainment qualities of a commercial can be so overemphasized that the selling message is lost. The most effective commercials appear to be those in which the sales appeal is well integrated with the entertainment. Tests have been made in which it was found that consumers remembered best the parts of a commercial in which there was no selling message, yet these pitches were well liked. We have had success with top ranking commercials in audience "liking," commercials that have sold the sponsor's product. The recent Hofstra Study conducted for NBC, and other studies, show that, on the average, the best selling commercials are also the best liked. Those that irritate are, on the average, the commercials that do a poor job of selling. There have been, however, irritating or boring commercials that have done well in selling a product, though I know of very few. The NBC study showed that the well-liked television commercials produced twice the sales results of the disliked commercials. It is interesting to note that the commercials that were neither liked nor disliked, the neutral ones, proved less productive than the irritating commercials. All available evidence tends to prove, that while a commercial may rate low in listener or viewer liking and still prove a success in producing sales, this is the rare exception. While there are exceptions, it is safe to say that a commercial that people like is likely to do a better selling job than one which irritates or bores. Richard G. Werner Research Department Manager Kudner Agency New York LANGW0R1H SELL SOW1 IANG-WORTH FEATURE PROGRAMS, Inc. 113 W. 57th ST.. NEW YORK 19. N. Y. Network Calibre Programs at Cecal Station Cost 13 AUGUST 1951 79