Sponsor (Jan-June 1954)

fall he decided to gamble with packaged coffee identical to that served by the restaurettes. Black faced two main problems: 1. It's virtually impossible for a new coffee brand to survive unless it has some distinctive feature which the old. established brands lack. 2. In this era of can-opener cooking, speed is replacing other considerations in meal planning. Housewives are turning to the instant coffees. That hurts the chances of a new regular coffee. Chock full o'Nuts coffee got the flavor of newness by building on an old established notion: to stay in business a restaurant's got to serve good coffee. Here are the main points used by the new brand's agency, Frederick Clinton Co., in air and print advertising: 1. A restaurant's reputation is as bad or as good as the cup of coffee it serves. The finest meal goes unappreciated when topped off by an inferior cup of coffee. The average restaurant, therefore, serves a much better cup of coffee than the average housewife. 2. To make this better cup of coffee restaurants buy a better grade of coffee than can be purchased in a grocery. Chock full o'Nuts packaged coffee is the same coffee that is served in its restaurettes. Because of its superior quality its costs a few cents more than regular coffee. 3. To insure home consumers of getting the same cup of coffee as is served in the restaurettes every tin contains a plastic coffee measure and instructions. The brand's advertising drive — including radio, tv, newspapers and car cards — was designed to put over these selling points as quickly and as effectively as possible. The agency wrote an easy-to-hum jingle for its air drive; used attention-catching colors and bold type faces in its newspaper and subway ads. Incidentally, the coffee's over-all budget— over $500,000 — is a much bigger chunk than is usually spent to advertise a new product in its initial year of distribution in a single market. Reasoning behind the expenditure may be that the restaurant chain, in advertising its packaged coffee, is also adver case history in iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiimi! Restaurant chain got start during depression days William Black Harold Rieff Chain was born in L920 when William Black (1.) opened nut stand. When depression hit lie converted in stands into low-priced snack liars Today. 25 restaurettes gross $10 million annually. Black now plots ail strategy for new coffee with Harold Rieff (r.), exec. vvp., Frederick Clinton agencj IlllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllM tising its 25 restaurettes. Although the plugs for the restaurant are always indirect, they are, nonetheless, strong facets of the copy. The announcer never says, "Come to any of Chock full o'Nuts 25 restaurettes and you'll get delicious meals as well as the coffee that made the chain famous." But the continuous mention of the fact that the restaurettes' coffee is superior coffee is almost as pointed as a direct pitch. The ad budget, therefore, is serving a dual function: launching the new coffee, and getting more business for the restaurettes. Here's how Harold Rieff, executive vice president of the Frederick Clinton Co. and account executive for the coffee, and William Black, owner ol the restaurant chain, approached the radio-tv campaign: • To get the coffee into stores fast Rieff and Black wanted to make a hard corps of consumers actively demand the brand. The best way of achieving product identification is through repet il ion. For this reason they decided to concentrate fire on a single radio station and a single tv station, hitting the audience of each as many times as the budget would allow. • To get the most yardage out of the radio ad outlay within the limits of the single station Rieff selected announcements and participations instead of confining the schedule to a single i Please turn to page 110) In addition to announcements firm sponsors tv show, "Jerry Lester's Late Date" (WNBT) which reaches adults (Sat., 11:15 to midnight). Jean Martin, singing star (below), is sponsor's wife |B Jii3 J jW ^m^ ' raff Tf/T-«K . .' ^e jI\{ EH w&i : 1 " ml 1 * ! \ \ nHc 1 \ 8 FEBRUARY 1954 37