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Building IViateriai
Western Mineral's mixture of regional and local radio campaigns for Zonolite insulation material integral part of ad plans for 10 consecutive years
products which had hit the entire industry. Ahhough radio had been given little consideration in the past, Harvey W. Steiff, vice president in charge of sales for Western Mineral, decided that a concentrated campaign on the airwaves would not only maintain but increase insulation business.
"The decision to go into radio as an advertising medium," Mr. Steiff says, "went directly against the generally accepted feeling in the building materials industry that radio couldn't sell its products. However, we felt that local radio could reach our potential customers. The more aggressive dealers," Mr. Steiff continues, "agreed to go along with our experiment and give radio a try."
Zonolite spots were placed on about 75 stations in the upper midwestern territory the company services. The 1949 campaign not only halted the drop in sales, but broke all existing sales records for Western Mineral, according to the company. Enough momentum was also built up to sustain sales through winter, when business is traditionally slow.
The dramatic results of Western
Mineral's first venture into radio, Mr. Steiff points out, warranted continued use of the medium. After 10 consecutive years of working with radio, the company has evolved a flexible and successful formula for its distributors and dealers. "We have been steadily increasing our radio activities," Mr. Steiff says, "and our sales curve has been showing the results. In the past three years our firm doubled the volume of business it had built up over a 21-year period.
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Harvey W. Steiff, WMP's sales vice pres.
And when all the figures are in, we are sure that 1959 will have been the biggest single year in the company's history."
Western Mineial limits its own radio buys to full power stations in 35 key markets in nine midwestern states which comprise its sales territory. The primary objective is to provide an "imibrella" for the local spots and shows aired by the company's distributors and dealers.
"We don't have a rigid set of rules we follow when making a time buy," Mr. Steiff explains. "We try to be flexible and to make use of strong local personalities wherever possible. For this reason we use one minute transcriptions in some instances, and live copy delivered by the local celebrity in others.
"By making use of popular local personalities," Mr. Steiff continues, "we not only get the advantage of associating him with Zonolite to his loyal listening audience, but we are also provided with a strong argument to help persuade some doubting dealers to climb on the radio bandwagon. As a matter of fact, we have invited some of these perform
U. S. RADIO
January 1960
29