Sponsor (May-Aug 1958)

STAHL MEYER I Cont'd from page 38 I o9(> kid;* who had sent in a label with an entr\ Darning the car. and received nothing. The premium step was inserted to take care of the losers. Besides giving the original losing entrants a chance to win a prize, this phase of the promotion built more new • ustomers and caused most of the original 19.001) to buy another package in order to get the label for the premium. The fourth phase is currently running. Now the product is in the home. The children are aware of the brand name; so, too, are the parents who have probably helped fill out blanks once or twice. "By this time the contest entrants have forgotten the contest," says Ricchiuto. "The premium winners have stopped playing with the gun. So we must introduce the memory factor, by having the show personality continue to eat the product. And we must transfer the idea of continuing to buy the product."' The vehicle for this is a new animated character, called "The Bwight Li'l Kid." This is a studious-looking, Lord Fauntleroy-type little boy, but self-admittedly savvy. He is presented as superior to his child contemporaries, yet, it is believed, not obnoxiously so. It's a difficult character to engineer. How long will this fourth step be maintained? "Stahl-Meyer keeps a dail) check on sales figures," Ricchiuto notes. "As long as the animated portion maintains its effectiveness, we'll continue to use it." The schedule calls for 11 one-minute participations a week, spread over four shows. Three a week are scheduled on Terry-Toons, with Claude Kirschner on WOR-TV; Time for Fun, with Johnny Jellybean on WABC-TV; and the Sandy Becker Show on WABD. Two a week run on Wonderama with Herb Sheldon on WABD. In contrast to this the Ferris campaign, uhirli began on 27 November last year, has an entirely different focus. The appeal here is to adults; indeed the voice used for the commercials is that of Kenny Delmar, as Senatoi Claghorn. It assumes listeners will identify the Senator with the late Fred Allen's classic "Allen's Alley." I Be of I (dinar's Claghorn character is to >uggest a Southern invitation to gracious hospitality, as well as a re affirmation of the meats' hill-country appetite appeal. The Senator is now spokesman for the Ferris brand — on radio and in newspapers, and at company sales meetings. "\\ c were looking," reports Frank Guthrie, Stahl-Meyer's vice-president in charge of sales and advertising, "for a distinctively American theme to convey the idea that an American product prepared for American tastes is preferable to an imported canned ham. At the same time we wanted to forcibly remind the public that Ferris hams and bacon are hickory smoked the old-fashioned way . . . that they are worth a slightly higher price because of premium quality." Holidays are the backbone of Ferris ham sales. Its bacon moves well throughout the year, and, of course, some ham is sold regularly. The Claghorn campaign was introduced the month before Christmas. For the first four weeks some 97 oneminute spots ran weekly on seven radio stations in New York and vicinity. After Christmas the campaign dropped to about 18 spots a week on two stations. A similar pattern occurred at Easter. "Results of the Ferris radio promotion have been excellent," reports ad manager Hoedt. "Each successive holiday promotion has set new sales records, and intervening periods reach higher base levels. We expect to set all-time high sales figures for each of the holidays in 1958." Retail food dealers, whether chain stores or independents, traditionally are anxious for packer support by advertising to consumers. It's common for salesmen calling on the retail trade to carry around tear sheets of recent print ads to prove such support. With a majority of his ad budget going into air media, Hoedt was unable to supply his salesmen with this type of documentation. Se he has devised a system of preparing brochures before each major promotion for each product line. The brochure explains what the theme and content of the promotion will be, and lists the heavy support it will be given, by showing the air media schedules. Though somewhat unusual, the heavy-weighted air campaign for StahlMeyer is working out well. It permits the company to make a sizable splash in a major market, on a relatively modest budget. And, most importantly, it's paying off in sales. ^ NIGHTTIME RADIO {Cont'd from page 31) ers per car) . Nielsen also has scotched the "everyone's watching tv at nightso-who's-to-listen?" myth by uncovering such evidence that the cumulative radio audience in a week comes close to half the cume tv audience. The quality of the nighttime radio audience, often questioned bv advertisers, has also been proved by NBC Radio Spot Sales based on research by The Pulse last November. On such scores as auto ownership, socio-economic level, tv ownership, age of housewife, education of head of the house, and family size, the nighttime radio family was demonstrated to equal in quality the daytime radio family. The survey was conducted in three major markets: New York, Chicago and San Francisco. The Radio Advertising Bureau has reported that 63.4% of all U. S. families listen to radio at home at night. A Peters, Griffin, Woodward presentation based on a study of 23 stations representing 31% of total radio homes show ed that in "prime"' da\ time traffic periods radio reaches 786,611 families in and out of homes while nighttime radio delivers 650,511. Yet the cost-per1,000 between 6:30 and 9 a.m. is 80c1 against 73** between 6 and 10 p.m. A study by The Pulse showed 10 to 15% more listeners per radio set at night than in "prime" 7 to 9 a.m. period and 30% more than in afternoons. Perhaps no more dramatic proofs of nighttime radio's performance for advertisers has been offered than the continuing series of tests run by RAB. These tests which advertised with nighttime commercials on stations in markets to which the product advertised was not only a stranger but completely unobtainable all showed a high incidence of recall when people were later stopped in the street and questioned about what they had heard. Typical was the experiment in San Diego (where nobody buys coal; average temperature 59°). RAB ran a radio jingle for Blue Coal exclusively in the night schedule of KFMB. After the last of 52 announcements were aired, a random check of San Diegoans turned up the fact that 11% recalled the ads, many could sing back the jingle. ^ SPONSOR • 10 MAY 1958