U. S. Radio (Jan-Dec 1960)

15 Motion Picture Film Companies Agency: Various agencies and direct Product: Motion pictures Marketing Objective: To pinpoint the movie audience for individual film campaigns. Radio Solution: Heavy use of spot on local and re gional level. (Digested from U. S. RADIO, March I960, p. 32) THE advertising committee of the Motion Picture Advertisers Association estimated that the major domestic fihn companies would spend some $70 million advertising the 225 to 250 pictures that were to be released in 1960. A large portion of these advertising dollars ^\as spent on a co-op basis with the operators of the nation's 10,000 roofed theatres and 5,000 drive-ins. According to the Sindlinger research organization, the average attendance in 1959 was 41,954,000, with 2,333,000 more tickets sold per week than 1958. This increase meant heavier expenditures for selling efforts. "Radio, at the price, can pinpoint the movie audience better than any other medium," said Jonas Rosenfeld Jr., executive in charge of advertising, publicity and exploitation at Columbia Pictures. The film company considers radio a basic part of its advertising program. Although the amount of money spent on radio varied with each picture, the average was usually from 10 to 25 percent of the budget. Mr. Rosenfeld anticipated the continued heavy use of radio. Another strong advocate of radio is Universal-International. David A. Lipton, vice president of the company, pointed out the extensive use of the sound medium, especially in the area of the pre-sell campaign. An example was the company's film Spartacus. During the period of a few hours, no less than 3,870 separate spots Avere aired over 960 stations across the country through the facilities of three networks. The spot barrage consisted of 10-second announcements stating "1960 is the year of Spartacus and Spartacus is the motion picture of the year." As with most of the other major companies. Paramount Pictures prefers transcriptions as opposed to live spots. Also following industry policy, the firm supplies these ETs to stations and theatre owners free of charge. Joe Friedman, national exploitation manager, pointed out that for a major film such as Samson and Delilah, Paramount prepared and distribiued over 1,000 radio transcriptions. "Radio was used on nearly every picture released in 1959 by United Artists," stated Robert B. Weston, assistant advertising manager for the company. "We use radio for saturation campaigns, to pre-sell a picture and during the picture's run." Enthusiatic Exhibitors "Theatre operators are extremely enthusiastic about radio," Al Fisher, United Artists' assistant exploitation manager said. "In fact, we usually get direct requests from exhibitors for co-op money for local radio use. Our usual procedure is to saturate an area from five to seven days prior to the opening of the picture." Martin Michel, director of radio and tv for 20 Century-Fox, said that although the company always used radio, a considerable increase was shown in the last half of 1959. Though most of the radio time is bought on the regular local co-op basis, the firm has also made some national buys, he said. Unlike many of the other film companies, Mr. Michel said that 20th Century Fox makes use of popular local personali ties to deliver live announcements when the picture lends itself to such a treatment. "We have found that radio is the best way to reach the teenage market," he noted, "but for a few exceptions, there is very little tv programming offered for this important gioup." 20th Century-Fox used radio spots on 75 to 80 percent of its releases in 1959, and that figure rose considerably during 1960. • • • 3 LOCAL RADIO STATIONS IN 1 That's what you get when you buy time on BIG 5,000 -WATT WFHR WISCONSIN RAPIDS with full time studios in MARSHFIELD AND STEVENS POINT BIG Coverage at Lowest CostPer-Thousand ... 20 Years of Local Radio Service WFHR WISCONSIN RAPIDS. WISC. Phone HA-3-7200 Represented by Devney, Inc. U. S. RADIO • AIRFAX 1961 79