U. S. Radio (Jan-Dec 1961)

do you attract sponsors necessary for your survival with an audience created in protest against your potential sponsor's commercial activity? Obviously some sort of middle ground was not only desirable, but necessary. Thus the problem began 8 soft-sell commercials LENGTH OF CONTRACT APPROACH 52 wks Soft sell 52 wks General 8 wks Hard sell 3 days Safe driving 52 wks Soft sell 1 wk Soft sell 13 wks Booklet 8 wks Soft sell 18 wks Language 3 wks Man on street 2 wks Soft sell 4 wks Soft sell 3 days Hard sell 8 wks General 52 wks Soft sell 4 wks Soft sell 5 wks Jet age 3 days Soft sell 13 wks Soft sell 13 wks General 13 wks Soft sell 6 wks Soft sell 13 wks General 52 wks Soft sell 52 wks Music 52 wks Medium 1 wk 13 wks Soft sell 2 wks Soft sell 4 wks Soft sell 13 wks Soft sell 13 wks Soft sell 13 wks Soft sell 1 wk General 2 wks Product 4 wks Safe driving 6 wks Soft sell to resolve itsell around intelligent creative programing to lill the listener's need and which would, ;ii i lie same time, provide an acceptable ve hide for the sponsor's message. Program Manager Frederick [limes, together with Sales Managei Edwin Kabernagel, formatted basic policies on programing with commercial needs integrated into the over-all schedule. The type and method of commercial presentation were also integrated into the policy decisions. The result was commercial programing as well as program control. With the first obstacle apparently removed we relaxed in the belief that the Baltimore advertising agencies would immediately recognize the values and potential of fm in general and WFMM in particular. It will come as no great surprise to others in the fm field to learn that, with few exceptions, the agencies did not break down our front door. Kabernagel's experience showed that media buyers and account men: 1. were reluctant to move clients from am to fm because it required a certain amount of courage and judgment (15% the safe way is better than 15% with risk); 2. were generally uninformed as to the advantages of fm or couldn't care less; 3. demanded statistics or evidence on which to base a recommendation. To help overcome the agency barrier we retained the services of MacLellan Associates, Inc., a Baltimore advertising agency with a strong background in radio and creative advertising and a unique interest in fm. With their assistance, a campaign was devised to make a strong WFMM impression on agency consciousness. The first step was a series of reproductions of famous works of art on postcards mailed at intervals from London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and Madrid. Each card carried the message conveyed by our call letters, "World of Fine Music for Maryland." While these mailings were in progress a strong visual presentation was produced by MacLellan Assoc. Kabernagel followed up the mailings with a personal call and the visual presentation. This approach gained U. S. RADIO/September 1961 some agency respect, but little at lion. Meanwhile, back at the station, a few cautious souls look the plunge and sponsored a segment oi two. Some of them dropped out o! the pic ture, but more renewed. The fact that some sponsors knew more about fm and were more aware of its potential than their own agencies was the clue that led us to the solution of how to accelerate agency interest. All we did was get agency and client together, tell them the fm and the WFMM stories, and leave fm radios so they could hear W FMM programing. The answer was absurdly simple. The fm quality and WFMM programing sold themselves. The leak in the dike of indifference widened to a trickle and some media buyers began to think they might not be banished to the mail room if they bought WFMM. We felt we were headed downhill now, but one more problem presented itself— changing the sponsor's raucous am approach to something suitable for fm. Here again the answer was obvious all the time. We just approached the client directly and offered our help and experience to guarantee him the maximum benefit from his fm money. He was happy, and the agency account executive was relieved that he didn't have to exert himself. Thus we discovered another axiom that has helped our commercial operations — keep your programing creative and diversified. A concrete example of the value of creativity and diversification lies in the history of our relationship with the Roland Park Realty Co. Roland Park had successfully sponsored a music segment and a spot schedule over a period of months. However, the Roland Park management felt something stronger was needed to command attention amid summer distractions. Program Manager Himes, Sales Manager Kabernagel and Account Executive Kent Redgrave of MacLellan Assoc. Inc. got together and devised a new format peculiarly suited to fm programing. The trio created a five-minute nightly review of a new non-fiction book program called Best of the Bookshelf, aired Tuesday through Saturday, 8 to 8:05 p.m. Redgrave writes the review and handles the air work. Himes handles the producContinued on page 67 63