Sponsor (1956)

SELLING CLIENT ON BUY [Continued from page 42) to be 20-second commercials within a budget of approximately $24,000 for 52 weeks. The product, an "impulse" item, was one we will call Prod-A. The first thing the buyer wanted to consider was: With which of Southburghs three channels do most of the housewives spend their viewing time? He found the answer could be determined by an easy though lengthy computation involving any one (it does not matter which! of the rating ser\ices covering the market. In this case, lie used Nielsen because his agency's research department preferred it to the others. To learn which had a larger percent of housewife viewers necessitated his multiplying the "pen cut women" (in the "audience composition" column) time the "viewers per home," times the "four week cumulative audience" of the NSI area homes. He did this for each rated fifteen-minute segment of each of the three stations. And when he was finished, these computations showed him graphically and clearly which of the stations had the larger share of housewife viewers, and at what times during the broadcast day the viewing increased and decreased. Looking at his completed calculations, he observed that Southburgh's television stations shared the housewile \ iewers approximated as follows: \\ \ XX TV, 40.3'/, ; WYYY TV, 25.0'.: WZZZ-TV, 33.7^o. And the Inner began to feel that if the stations' rates were in perspective, WXXX-TV would be the place to reach his housew ife customers. lie began the second step; one of comparing stations' rate cards and KRIZ Phoenix says radios are moving into the kitchen!" package plans against the housewife viewers in each rate classification. His question: Are the station's time charges in line with the housewife audience it delivers? He worked toward the answer in measuring each station's various rate category (using the package-rate, or the maximum frequency rate where applicable) by dividing into these rate categories the average number of housewives reached within them. His results were a series of cost-per-thousand-housewife-viewersreached in each category, and these he pulled together in chart form. With this chart, the timebuyer was now in a position to furnish that "lost" answer to our nightmare client's questions: "But why do you want us to buy this station? Doesn't the other one show on Nielsen as reaching more of our customers?" The answer: "Yes, WXXX-TV does reach more of Prod-A's potential customers, but their rate is so high if we buy them we pay almost twice what we do using the other stations, in addition to the fact we get less frequency." This is the value of such a chart; it frequentlv shows that while one station is delivering more potential customers, it is also charging many times more in relation to other stations in the market. With these two basic calculations out of the way, the timebuyer should find himself able to draw up a formal recommendation for his client a — a recommendation he can make stick. He has learned that a recommendation doesn't have to be long and involved, although he used to think it did. He can remember once starting one with: "Our review began with the basic premise that products, like people, generally compel attention in one of two ways: they have either an inherent qualih of interest (talent, glamour, ability, etc.) which gives them a certain aura of mystery (e.g. automobiles and Greta Garbo) or the illusion is created through advertising that these qualities are inherent (e.g. Instant Maxwell House Coffee and Marilyn Monroe). Since, in our opinion, our client's product falls within the latter category and since it is one bought on impulse, this becomes a problem of how best to create and quicken interest in a product which ma\ be considered to be uninteresting lo most people. Our review indicates lli.il within budgelarv limits this necessar) interest cannot be created b\ • ailing in a quiet voice ever) week foi .12 week that our client's product is here (or even here with new products). Some goods will be moved, without question, but . . . etc." This preamble did not sell the client. In addition, the timebuyer found out later the client had spent several moments seriously considering readying the big net. The recommendation he now drew up for Southburgh was more to the point I see figure Bi. He proposed schedules on WYYY-TV and WZZZTV, and not WXXX-TV, simply because it was apparent that even though \\ WX-TV had a larger housewife audience, it was overpriced, and his client could stretch his budget further and more effectively by using the other stations. The recommendation did not show availabilities because availabilities are almost invariably subject to prior sale and he rightly felt that if something is offered a client it should be deliverable. He showed instead a recommended spot buying pattern based upon his first calculation and the knowledge that Prod-A was an '"impulse" item. But the media detail he showed was, in effect, a guarantee (this had been more or less established in past recommendations') to WBAM * Montgomery, Ala., MORE AUDIENCE THAN ALL 3 NETWORK STATIONS COMBINED I PULSE, MAY, '56 'REPRESENTING ALL 4 MAJOR NETS 106 SPONSOR