Sponsor (Jan-June 1952)

3, BANK OF AMERICA 1«^XS iness on the West Coast, recently used the 'J hanksgiving holiday as a springboard into a regional public relations one-shot. BOA sponsored the onetime "California Around the World" for a half-hour on Columbia Pacific tccb 21 November. This kind of seizing on PR angles has helped build the firm. 4. WESTERN UNION ?[ovin& '!"" CWm85.0Be shots need not cost a mint to be effective, WU bought a 15-minute 7:00 to 7:15 p.m. portion, of NBC's "The Big Show" on 2'A December. WU plugged the idea of telegrams for Xmas greetings. Cost: under $10,000. Results: a noticeable upswing in Christmas telegrams at WU offices. More seasonal sales punches are upcoming. o use them cember. Total cost: under $10,000. Result: a big business jump in Xmas wires. Aware of the general trend and growing diversity of one-shot usage, sponsor, in recent weeks, interviewed several leading network and agency executives, clients and station officials. What, sponsor asked them, was behind it all? Typical of the answers received was this comment, from the vice president in charge of radio sales for one of the two leading networks. He summed up the situation this way for a sponsor editor : "There have always been big oneshot sponsored shows in broadcasting. But, in the old days we didn't do much to encourage them. Because, with the exception of some 'extravaganza' holiday shows and top sports events throughout the year, we weren't in a position to accept the business. "The headaches of clearing the time, when virtually all of our radio time was sold on the network, was enough to make us freeze up at the mention of 'one-shot.' With the competitive media picture today, we've thrown overboard this type of thinking. "Not only are we glad to have oneshot business today in radio, and to some extent in TV, we do everything we can to encourage it. This is true of all of the networks as well. Any of the radio networks today will be glad to sell you a one-time shot on any of their sustaining shows on a tailor-made network, and will do all they can to help promote and merchandise it. In fact, the networks are even custommaking vehicles that are ideally suited for 'one-shotting.' "At the same time, lots of our clients and prospects have overhauled their thinking about year-'round or September-through-June air advertising being the only effective way to sell. If you want to hand the major credit to someone, I guess it would be to the Ford Motor Company. You'll remember that in the fall of 1949, when they couldn't clear enough announcement time for a spot campaign to launch their new auto models, Ford bought a saturation campaign in network radio, using oneshots. I think 14 different programs in 13 weeks were used on one network alone. "Well, the results for Ford were so good, according to J. Walter Thompson, that we woke up to find that a new radio technique in one-shotting was here. So did a lot of other clients and the major networks. Since then, there have been several successful imitations of the Ford formula for everyone from General Mills to the mail-order book outfits. "The single one-shot effort is coming into its own, too, for a lot of advertisers who never used radio or TV before, or who used it sparingly. They're finding out that one-shots can be designed for all kinds of holiday or selling occasions. They've discovered that networks are more than willing to insure success with promotional backstopping. You can tell your sponsor readers that one-shot shows are strictly here to stay." The network official's thoughts on one-shots, sponsor soon discovered, were echoed, with variations, by nearly every broadcaster involved with them. Networks and stations are indeed glad to accept them, provided the advertiser doesn't conflict productwise with adjacent sponsored shows. Here are other symptoms of the growing one-shot trend : • Programs. As pointed out above, all of the major radio networks have the welcome mat out for advertisers who want to buy as little as a one-time use of a sustainer. (Some have even drawn up a special rate card for onetime, bi-weekly, and once-a-month sponsorships.) ABC has geared is various "Pyramid Plan" shows for the pocketbooks of advertisers who want to buy one big effort, or an occasional promotion. A wide choice of all types of shows are available. NBC has a half-hour portion of The Big Show and the Wednesday night Barry Craig whodunit series set aside for one-shotting; CBS built its Red Skelton radio series from the ground up, complete with a new merchandising setup (see "The network merchandising era is here" in 17 December 1951 sponsor) to make it work. These are in addition to long lists of sustaining shows. Mutual, although it has not created special vehicles for one-shotting, contemplates doing so, has a long list of "product audience" sustainers suitable for one-time use. • Costs. There is a far wider range of price tags on one-shots today than there used to be, at the national, regional and local level. The big, fancy one-shots still cost a lot. Reynolds Metals' radio-video one-shot recently with the NBC Symphony during the Christmas-New Year season, an hourlong salute to Toscanini seen and heard on full NBC, cost Reynolds nearly •^O^OO plus the costs of promcting and publicizing the "good will" effort. The biggest of the Gillette sports ef ( Please turn to page 70) /Above all else, there has to be a good reason for the one-shot. Actually, one-shots tie neatly into seasonal sales and holidays, can sell or do PR job. • J^ Shop carefully for a good one-shot. >•>■ There is a wide choice of such programs today, nationally and locally, with price tags to fit any advertiser's budget. *^ To be a success, one-shot shows *& should be planned far enough in advance to enable the sponsor to do a sizable consumer audience promotion job. 0 One-shots should be promoted with jt equal vigor to a sponsor's sales force and dealers to insure their backing. One-shots can mesh with trade events. J No one-shots, even holiday shows, should be isolated events. They are best when they're kickoff for major ad campaign, and followed up with good ads.