Sponsor (July-Dec 1953)

CBS IN THE LAND GREEN BAY 5,000 WATTS is tor the rw "Careful Buyer" The buyer who must make every advertising dollar do double duty — the local advertiser who knows the Portland market best — they are the steady customers of KWJJ. They have found that this powerful independent brings more sales per dollar spent because KWJJ brings local people the kind of local programming they want to hear. One spot schedule will .*"+ KWJJ • Studio and Offices 1011 S.W. 6th Ave., Portland 4, Oregon WEED &. COMPANY in for two magazines or two programs, between 'hea\ y' vs. 'light' users! Example: Duplication between two magazines or two programs might be 20' i. Vmong the users of margarine who read both magazines <>r watched <>i heard both programs, it might l>« as high as 7(i' i or as low as 7%. Yet for an automobile, the reverse ma) be the case. ' 3. Measuring costs-per-1,000 is valid when based on circulation and rates instead of on customers readied. It tells you nothing of cost-per-Sl.OOO poll ntial goods sold. 4. It isn't terriblj important to determine who your customers are. "Our customers are everybody." (Fact: "This is an illusion: no product has ]()()' f acceptance.") How do you find who your customers are? Go out and make a survey. Then find out how best to reach them. That helps deride what medium or combination of media \oull use: then you'll know duplication among your prospects, how to increase or decrease your duplication. I Comments of additional researchers to be continued in next issue.) * * * RATE-CUTTING I Continued from page 35 I gest stations, particularly those who have made an overhaul in their rates, are not afraid these days to tell a client or agency to go to blazes if it wants a deal which would make the rate card blush. There are of course exceptions to this — even among the largest stations in the top markets. If an advertiser dangles a big enough budget, he can sometimes get a flat rate all the way from 10 to 40' } off the card rate for a sizable package of announcements. "Generally speaking. Id say that standardized volume discounts have largely replaced the "special rate" deals common last year. We checked almost all of the reps and larger stations in recent weeks and found that you could gel a good price for an extra-large schedule. Howe\er. am advertiser could have gotten the same price." a .1. Walter Thompson buyer stated. W hats caused this partial aboutface in rate deals? For one thing, industry opinion has made main a station manager think twice before offerinu a cut-rate deal to an agency or client. "Because of all the publicity that has been afforded to this topic in the trade press, in agencyrep clinics, in 4-A meetings and the like a station is taking a big chance today if it makes private deals on rates, the sales manager of a large New York rep firm told SPONSOR. Meanwhile industry groups like the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters have been waging an active war against rate chiseling within their own ranks. Sample barrage from Harold E. Fellows, president. .NARTB: "There is some rate-cutting going on in broadcasting today, and it is deplorable— not for the punishment it ma) visit upon those who practice it I for they desene the punishment t but for the unfair position in which it places the industry as a whole. "Anyone who consistently cuts rates should cut his own salary, for he is not worth what he is being paid to sell his product. Or he should quit the broadcasting business and become an auctioneer. "If it is your honest conviction that vour rates are not justified in the light of j our service, get out from under the table and change them — for everyone to see. No off-the-card deal is ever offthe-record. The word can soon get around that you are running a bargain counter instead of a broadcasting station." i From a speech before the Ltah Broadcasters Association in Salt Lake City. 30 June 1953.) Officially, the industry groups associated with radio and T\ can not take am drastic action against the few stations who still maintain a namevour-own-price policy. The NARTB and the Station Representatives Association, who do not approve in am way of special rate deals, can't force the issue because of antitrust angles. On the buyer's side of the fence, the American Association of Advertising Agencies group feels that it is caught between media and buyer in dealing with questions of rate chiseling. And the Association of National Advertisers indicated to sponsor that it didn't like to interfere in media problems, feeling that efforts to end rate deals would have to come from broadcasters themselves, not clients. However, all of these industry associations— and many local and regional broadcasters groups — are on 88 SPONSOR