Sponsor (July-Dec 1955)

TIMEBUYING BASICS For example, about two years ago I was buying a big radio campaign. I had exactly three days in which to buy. As every timebuyer knows, you don't do your buying during the day, you do it after hours. I had to buy about 10 nighttime radio announcements in 180 markets. Well, you can imagine — 180 markets with an average of three stations in a market, and any number of availabilities — you must sympathize with what it is for a buyer to try and screen 5,000 to 7,000 announcements in three nights. It is pretty horrible. You are trying to do a good job for your client, but you get tired and by 10 or 11 o'clock at night you've just about had it. There was one rep who sent in the availabilities, and, honestly, it wasn't a question of reading down, it was a question of turning sheets around. And finally at 11 o'clock at night, and I hope that no one at Procter & Gamble hears about this, I got so mad that every time I picked up an availability sheet from this rep, I just threw it right into the wastebasket. I know it sounds terrible, but wait until you have to do it, and you will see what I mean. Maybe I cheated my client on one or two good spots, but after all, we are only human beings, and it's just tiring. I know the salesmen think we are asking for miracles. We call up at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and we say, "must have availabilities right away." We are sorry to have to do it at the last minute, but what can we do with clients? Anyhow, it is easier to argue with the salesman than it is with the client, let's put it that way. I think if the salesman could find some way to make it easier on our eyes and our disposition, it would help the buyers, and in the end it would really help the salesman. Another thing that we need from the salesman is more complete information on what schedules will cost, and that is particularly true these days in television where no matter how experienced you are, you can't be too experienced, because new problems are constantly arising. You forget if you are buying a show that there might be an editing charge, because you are going to splice in film, and it is very difficult and very embarrassing for a timebuyer to have to go back to an account executive or to the client later and say, "Gentlemen, I didn't know, but can I have another $25 for this or that?" Another thing < this happens to be a very controversial issue) is the question of salesmen arguing with buyers about ratings. I think perhaps I should state it in the positive way and say it would help the salesman a great deal if he would submit availabilities with the ratings that are acceptable to the agency or to the client. I am certainly not going to get into a discussion as to whether Hooper is better than Pulse or Pulse is better than ARB. and so on down the line. But we do know that different agencies have different rules and different regulations, and there is very little to be gained by salesmen continually arguing that we don't use the right rating service or the station doesn't use it or you have no right to use it, and on and on. Many times it isn't up to the buyers to decide what the rating service is. The only way I can ever answer is that if I am buying based on ARB, for example, and a salesman comes in and says, "I have better spots on Pulse," I think a good idea for him is to sell the Pulse spots to the agency that prefers Pulse and I will buy spots where ARB ratings are good. It will all work out in the end. The salesman will sell all his spots, and he will certainly save an awful lot of wear and tear on both of us. The last part of the service is the problem of quick confirmations. I know that lots of work has to be done on the telephone, but you know as well as I do with people being trained and with the confusion that can arise during a heavy spot campaign, particularly when you have so-called saturation plans, that we need quick confirmations in writing. It may seem a formality to you, but it isn't a formality to us, because we must confirm our schedules to the client. They are rightfully interested in how their money has been spent. If we are constantly being told later on, "Well, PAGE 20 there was a change here, or there was a change there," we have to notify the client, and they in turn have to notify the sales department four and five times. All that happens is that eventually everybody builds up a kind of antagonism and the buyer resents the salesman because he isn't quick, and the account executive begins to think that the buyer is not doing a job, and he goes back and gets mad at the salesman. Quick confirmations could help a great deal. One other thing, a salesman has an obligation to maintain as good a relationship between an agency and a station as possible. Occasionaly, a station man will come in to see you without his rep. (The reps don't like it, but every once in a while they manage to sneak in) and I will find that my feelings or the agency's feelings or the client's feelings have not been properly transmitted to the station. The salesman should always tell the station exactly what happened and not always make it sound as if the timebuyers are pretty stupid or they are arbitrary. It is particularly true if a timebuyer tries very hard to be cooperative and to explain a situation in advance, and then that is not passed on to the station. Here is an example of what I am thinking. Recently we placed a campaign on a radio station. We told the salesman exactly how much money we had and how long the campaign was going to run. I believe it was something like eight weeks. We asked him to please tell the station to help pick out spots on the basis of a short campaign. In other words, we did not want the station to go to the trouble of moving, let's say, local advertisers to give us what we wanted, and then suddenly turn around and discover it was a short-term campaign. That is the way we presented it. Why the rep did not pass this on to the station I do not know. Perhaps he hoped that there was going to be a renewal. But as a result, the station went ahead with the schedule and also did a marvelous promotion job for us on the particular product. Well, obviously, the station is angry with me, and I am angry with the rep, and it might take six months for me to see the station manager and explain to him that really and truly we had told the salesman that we were not going to run a long campaign. I guess probably what it all narrows down to is that we are not always creatures of logic; sometimes we can be creatures of emotion and the people we like are the people we try to do things for, and the people that we don't care about, well, they are the one's that aren't going to get as much of a break. And so, I think, that probably the personal relationship between the agency and the salesman and the station can be very important for everybody getting exactly what they want. I can end this up by saying that I hope that the salesmen sitting here don't think that we want miracles, but, remember, my client does! So, there is nothing personal in it, but every time I buy a spot, regardless of the market, all I want is the / Love Lucy spot. WHAT SALESMEN EXPECT FROM BUYERS LEWIS H. AVERY: Back in the summer of 1943 when I was associated with the NAB, now the NARTB, and I knew all there was to know about buying and selling time, I wrote a booklet with the heading. "How to Buy Radio Time." I hope nobody can find a copy because it is a little bit obsolete right now. I am now beginning to learn something about the business. However, in the foreword of the booklet, which I wrote for Mr. Paul Morency's signature, there are some comments that I think we ought to keep in mind in this relation of buyer and seller.