Sponsor (Jan-Apr 1958)

CAN MERCHANDISING REALLY RAKE IN THE PESOS? It seeins particularly effective in Spanish-language markets, where radio listeners have an emotional loyalty to a station's personalities. Libby's merchandised baby foods heavily in New York's Latin market and today is top seller in the field Iwlore babies of Spanish-Puerto Rican extraction in New York City are eating Libby's baby foods today than any other brand. And executives at Libby, McNeill & Libby, Chicago, are crediting Spanish language radio. Libby, prior to its use of this medium, was just one of a number of brands doing about equal business among the 240,000 Spanish-Puerto Rican families in New York. Today it's top seller in this market. The firm faced two basic problems in building its variety of 28 different baby foods to its new rank: • To build brand preference for a product that is unique in one respect: the product consumers — infants — have no say in selecting the brand they're going to eat, above perhaps a gurgle of joy or yell of dissatisfaction at the high-chair table. • To obtain eye-level shelf position in grocery stores and supermarkets. This point is particularly important to 1 ) a 1 > \ food manufacturers. Research has shown that baby foods sell about 50% better if displayed at eye level. Why? Baby foods are strained to a "mush" consistency and packaged in glass jars. It's extremely difficult to tell the difference between, say, a jar of strained apple sauce and a jar of strained bananas — unless the label can be read. Eye-level shelf position brings the labels into easy visibility. This easy identification tends to increase the variety of foods a mother will buy for her offspring. Libby beat the first problem by buying into popular Spanish language programs featuring personalities whose endorsement of Libby's would be taken as gospel by the Spanish-Puerto Rican housewives. The second problem was met with intensive merchandising of the radio advertising to storekeepers and supermarket buyers. Programs: Libby started in June 1956 with a schedule of about 30 announcements a week in two of New York's Spanish language programs: Spanish Breakfast Club, aired from 5:00 to 10:30 a.m. daily over WWRL, and La Voz Hispana del Aire, broadcast from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. daily by the same station. The schedule, as worked out by J. Walter Thompson, Chicago, carried through until the end of December 1957 when Libby's took a hiatus. Return to the schedule is expected this month. Costs during 1957 were about $15,000, sponsor estimates. All time segments of the shows were used at one time or another by Libby's. The last Pulse survey on the programs, taken from 12 to 17 November 1956 in 500 Spanish-Puerto Rican homes, gives Breakfast Club this rating spread: from 2.6 at 5:00 to 5:15 a.m. to 16.2 for the 8:00 to 8:15 a.m. segment. The low for La Voz is from 5:30 to 5:45 p.m. (9.8); highest rated segment is from 6:15 to 6:30 p.m. (13.8). Pulse estimates the Spanish-speaking market at 970,000 people in the New York area. Effectiveness of the radio advertising was tested by Libby's in June, 1957 with a one-month free offer to listeners. The firm offered a baby spoon in return for a Libby's label as proof of product purchase. Result: Over 9,500 labels poured into WWRL in the first three weeks alone. Statistically, this averages out to a response of one out of every 26 Spanish-Puerto Rican families in the New York City area. The station's sales promotion staff also worked up a hard-hitting merchandising program aimed directly at SPONSOR • 25 JANUARY 1958