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DO YOU...
X. Want to sell your station?
OR
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i ■ Desire to sell part interest and turn over management to a respected, experienced executive?
Then, maybe we can get together. I would like to settle permanently in a desirable market with station growth potential. My management background is excellent and my sales management records are outstanding. My agency and advertiser contacts are extensive, my knowledge of network and representative operations is good. A discussion at our mutual convenience might be profitable. Would appreciate as many details as possible in first letter and I will respect youi confidence completely.
Write Box 27 SPONSOR
510 Madison Ave., New York 22
The question. "How does one properly divide advertising among 200 crackers, biscuits, and other products?" is answered at Nabisco's New York City waterfront offices as follows: "■Concentrate on a few and let them help carry the load for the others."
I lie logic dl this i„ ,,,,] ,,n|\ a matte] of avoiding getting balled up in ad schedules for 200 products but in hard sales figures. The blunt fact is that some of Nabisco's products sell very well while some don't sell well at all. As a result, the product pruning process at Nabisco has been a constant feature of its hislory. During its early days. Nabisco was selling 500 products. Today, with a line of 200, which is constantly being revalued ( as well as added to I . Nabisco's executives have chosen about 20 for consistent advertising support.
Budget allocation
Number One in Nabisco's line is Premium Crackers, especially the saltines which outsell the unsalted variety by far. What that signifies about America's taste Nabisco leaves to others to figure out. Premium Crackers, incidentally, are sold under the name Snow Flake on the West Coast.
Number Two is Ritz Crackers. It is no secret that Ritz was not the first sprayed butter cracker on the market, but within a short time after it came out in the '30's it had passed its competitors and put itself in a position of leadership which has never been challenged. Ritz is one of Nabisco's most stunning successes.
At the other end of the scale are brands that are not only small sellers but are confined to certain regions. For some reason the Nabisco people have never been able to fathom, a large cracker by the name of Kennedy's Commons is a consistent seller along the New England coast. Uneeda Biscuit is popular in the Northeast and West Coast but moves slowly in the Middle West.
These local loyalties put a kind of reverse twist on the basic strategy of silling Nabisco's crackers. Nabisco seeks to move minor brands on the strength of its top products, an idea which works particularly well in supermarkets. The housewife goes to the supermarket shelf to pick up, say, Premium ("rackets. While she does so her e\e nun alight on Nabisco's \\ aflle Creams and she will put a package of the latter in her shopping cart, too.
This is a most likely course of action since Waffle Creams are packed in cellophane and the product itself is visually attractive.
Now. in the case of such regional favorites as Kennedy's Commons, it is more than likely that buying reflexes work the other way around. The Down East housewife goes straight as an arrow to her particular favorite and may pick up. in addition, an adjacent Nabisco product which is a national best seller.
TSabisco,s new products
Thus. Nabisco's variegated product lineup works for it something like a symphony orchestra. The string instruments do the bulk of the work but the effect of the score is incomplete without other pieces.
Moreover. Nabisco's line is never static. New varieties are constantly being tested. Nabisco knows the consumer is a tricky animal when it comes to taste.
Last year Nabisco brought out chocolate chip pecan cookies in a foilwrapped package, cocoanut bars — snack size, and Nabisco Shredded Wheat in a new, smaller six-biscuit package.
The introduction of a new variety is a long, involved process. In the case of cocoanut bars, the chain of development started with the sales department which sensed a market for some kind of cocoanut product. The next step was to test recipes and sizes. This was done in the experimental bakery, which worked on the problem by following four rules: 1 1 ) the price should be low enough for mass sales, (2) the product should have a long shelf-life, (3) it should be rugged enough to withstand breakage during packing and shipping, (4) the product should be something which can be served at a variety of times and places.
The final recipe Avas chosen from among six, and the size was the result of cutting one of the test cookies in half. The choice followed its distribution among a test panel.
Then the following things happened: The engineering department designed the die to cut the dough, the ad department supervised the package design, the purchasing department set up the schedule for deliver) of ingredients ( Nabisco makes its own flour I and packages (Nabisco makes its own paperboard and prints its own packages), the laboratory tested the ingre
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