Broadcast Advertising, December 1929 (Volume 2)
The December issue of Broadcast Advertising, a Chicago monthly for radio time buyers, closing with an index of its articles since April.
What it is
The December issue of Broadcast Advertising, a Chicago monthly for radio time buyers, closing with an index of its articles since April. A. E. Bryson of Halsey, Stuart & Company tells financial advertisers how the Old Counsellor, a program of investment talks that never urged listeners to buy from the house, drew up to 6,000 requests for reprints from one broadcast. L. S. Baker of the National Association of Broadcasters fits radio into a five-step model of the sale and stages a blind test of a live orchestra against a recording. E. A. Fellers of the Mantle Lamp Company explains how Aladdin kerosene lamps failed on radio at $100 an inquiry, then paid out on farm stations with barn dance programs. Other pieces cover a Toledo plumber's "Swifty" program, Pepsodent's Amos 'n' Andy, a threatened ban on baseball broadcasts, and a report that most stations run at a loss.
Why read it now
The Aladdin story is the most useful. The first campaign bought time in bulk with costly scripts and got inquiries at $100 each; the second chose stations and hours by where farmers without electricity listened, and demand from shops grew until the company changed its whole distribution. Choosing media by who can buy is still the first rule of targeting. Fellers also found that plain product talk worked for an audience that needed the facts, and that every inquiry had to be passed to a dealer and checked. The Toledo plumber shows what a small budget can do with repetition, a named character and a short mnemonic, Q.P.S. for Quick Plumbing Service; children phoning to ask for Swifty is brand recall at work. Bryson's program, which sends listeners to "a good bank or bond house", is early trust-building content. Dated: Baker's five-step sale, a tidy sequence that later research on advertising effects does not support, and his claim that audiences sense a recording, which his own blind test undercut when the room split 22 to 27. Use: choose media by who can buy, then follow every inquiry to a sale.
Passages worth keeping
No matter how fine your program may be from an artistic sense, if it does not attract your prospects, the people who are logical purchasers of your merchandise, then it is simply so much wasted time and money.
جمال البرنامج لا قيمة له إذا لم يجذب الناس الذين يمكن أن يشتروا المنتج، فالمقياس هو الجمهور المناسب لا الإعجاب الفني.
Some manufacturers on the air seem ashamed of their products and only slide their names in at the end of their time as if hoping no one will notice them.
بعض المعلنين يخفون منتجهم ويذكرون اسمه على استحياء في آخر البرنامج، والأفضل أن يتحدث المعلن عن منتجه بوضوح إذا كان جمهوره يريد أن يعرف.
A good job of program building is in itself the most effective selling job you can do.
البرنامج الجيد يروّج لنفسه لأن الناس يتحدثون عنه، أما البرنامج الضعيف فلا ينقذه أي ترويج.
Gentlemen, would Mr. Barnum have tried to take his gate into the big top before he had shown them the sideshow?
لا تبدأ البرنامج بالكلام البيعي قبل أن تكسب انتباه المستمع بشيء يحبه، كما كان صاحب السيرك يعرض الفقرات الجانبية قبل أن يدخل الجمهور الخيمة الكبيرة.
If the inquirer means do we see direct, immediate and traceable results equal or in excess of our expenditure, the answer would, of course, be "No."
يعترف الكاتب بأن البرنامج لا يأتي بمبيعات مباشرة يمكن تتبعها وتغطي كلفته، لكنه يرى أن هذا ليس المقياس الصحيح لإعلان هدفه بناء الثقة بالشركة.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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