ADVERTISING: New Tool

Television’s swift growth had caught many advertising men with their charts down. Last week, at the annual convention of the American Association of Advertising Agencies at Virginia Beach, Va., admen took a long look at television and found it still full of the terrors of the unknown.

“Television,” said J. Walter Thompson’s Kennett W. Hinks, “provides advertising with a new tool.” How is the tool to be used? Neither he, nor anyone else, seemed to know.

Young & Rubicam’s research chief, Peter Langhoff, told the admen they had better find out, in a hurry. In six months, said he, the number of advertisers using television had grown from 89 to 211 (still far below the 1,150 national advertisers using radio). The television audience had grown to more than 1,000,000 (still 60% concentrated in the New York area). Furthermore, television programs, bad as they often are, had proved that they could shoulder radio aside.

A recent survey of those who could choose between competitive radio and television programs, said Langhoff, showed that 94% chose television. Said he: “. . . When these two stand up and slug it out there is little doubt . . . who is the coming champ.” Langhoff warned sponsors against wearing out the television audience with tediously repeated commercials. Since television demands undivided attention of the viewer, said Langhoff, it also “induces fatigue at a much greater rate than . . . radio, and possibly encourages sly drooping of the eyelids during the duller portions of a program.”