Broadcast Advertising, August 1929 (Volume 1, Number 5)
The fifth issue of Broadcast Advertising, a Chicago monthly for buyers and sellers of radio time, built mostly from speeches to advertisers.
What it is
The fifth issue of Broadcast Advertising, a Chicago monthly for buyers and sellers of radio time, built mostly from speeches to advertisers. O. H. Caldwell, a former Federal Radio Commissioner, explains why channels and dependable range are limited, admits stations exaggerate their reach, and advises testing on one station first. H. A. Bellows of WCCO shows chain radio spending rising from $823,202 in early 1927 to $4,240,703 in early 1929, dismisses mail counts as a measure of audience, estimates his station's circulation zone by zone, and matches kinds of selling to hours of the day. Orrin E. Dunlap Jr., in an excerpt from his book Advertising by Radio, weighs the $67,000 Dodge Victory Six broadcast, a jury of employees who rate programs, and free booklets as radio's coupon. Shorter pieces cover farm listeners at WNAX, non-cancellable contracts, and newspapers dropping sponsors' names from program listings.
Why read it now
The issue records the first arguments over proving that radio works, and several still apply. Bellows warns that the people you most want to reach rarely write in and that prizes inflate response; anyone judging incentivised leads today meets the same problem. Dunlap reports a door-to-door canvass in which housewives remembered Charlie Chaplin and John McCormack but not which sponsor paid for them. Misattribution is still one of the main ways advertising wastes money, and his remedy, putting the brand in the program's name as the Eveready Hour did, still helps. Bellows's claim that a first-rate program on a weak station beats a poor one on a strong station fits Nielsen's finding that creative quality drives more of a campaign's sales effect than reach or targeting. Caldwell's advice to make your mistakes on one station first is the case for a small test market. Dated: Dunlap's rule that humour has no place on radio, disproved within months by Amos 'n' Andy, and Bellows's forecast that the networks would struggle. Use: check that your audience can name the brand behind the content it likes.
Passages worth keeping
the listeners whom you are most anxious to reach are the very ones who seldom or never take the trouble to respond to a radio program.
عدد الرسائل لا يقيس الجمهور، لأن المستمعين الذين يهم المعلن الوصول إليهم نادرًا ما يكتبون إلى المحطة.
I believe that a first rate program over a poor station is more effective than a poor program over a powerful station operating on a nationally cleared channel.
جودة البرنامج أهم من قوة المحطة، فالبرنامج الجيد على محطة ضعيفة يؤثر أكثر من البرنامج الرديء على محطة واسعة الانتشار.
They were surprised to discover that few recalled a feature as part of any particular hour on the air.
المستمعون يتذكرون المشاهير الذين سمعوهم، لكن قليلًا منهم يعرف أي شركة رعت البرنامج، فيضيع أثر الإعلان على صاحبه.
A free booklet, properly handled, is considered as broadcasting's coupon.
عرض كتيب مجاني في البرنامج يقوم مقام القسيمة في الإعلان المطبوع، فعدد من يطلبه يكشف مقدار الانتباه للبرنامج.
certainly the wisest course would be to start on a single station first and so make all your mistakes in a limited area.
على المعلن الجديد أن يجرب على محطة واحدة أولًا، حتى تقع أخطاؤه في نطاق صغير قبل أن ينفق على نطاق واسع.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
Read the original worldradiohistory.com
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