The Public Fights TV Commercials
BERNAYS, EDWARD L.
The public fights TV COMMERCIALS By Edward L. Bernays ON JANUARY 26, a stinging indictment of television commercials by Dr. Grayson Kirk, President of Columbia University, received nationwide...
...if not all year round, at least a minimum of 39 weeks, while the 15 per cent keeps pouring in...
...Our study brought widespread, countrywide approval...
...Some believe it is too generous to the commercial...
...Yet, I am sure no one will contend that it has been successful in curbing abuses to any noticeable degree...
...By the end of 1953, there were 356 TV stations in the United States, and the number is growing...
...Other influential men agreed with Dr...
...that advertising should be confined within the framework of the sponsor's program structure and not employed as cow-catchers or trailers...
...A research foundation should be established by the industry before it is too late, and one of its tasks should be to explore the impact of the television commercial...
...He has been a close student of broadcasting ever since he helped initiate the nationwide broadcast of the Dodge Victory Hour twenty-eight years ago...
...Americans, whatever their station or profession, resented television commercials...
...accept beer and wine advertising only when presented in the best of good taste and in conformance with Federal and local laws...
...For TV is fabulously expensive to the advertiser, and every dollar spent by him yields profit to the agency in the form of a 15-percent commission or a discount...
...In my judgment, the permitted time for commercials should be reduced, at least to the point which would bring about the elimination of those in the middle of each program...
...In many cases, effective concepts for cartoons and animations are provided and developed by some obscure motion-picture service, not In the agency...
...Negotiations are involved and complicated...
...Plainly, the major energies and brain-power of top broadcasting executives go into the arts of deal-making and horse-trading...
...Cone said: "The cost of competition will be confiscation, for the public owns the air...
...They rest their eyes...
...They confound cause and effect...
...Whether these gentlemen really mean business remains to be seen, but at least they put themselves publicly behind good sense and virtue...
...The basic idea is to play it safe and try to please employer and sponsor alike...
...Grayson Kirk, President of Columbia University, received nationwide publicity and approval...
...They do not so much "earn" as "add" a 15-per-eent commission to the package price quoted by the network or independent packager and paid for by the sponsor...
...Television commercial production must be freed from attitudes like those of a speaker at the last convention of the Association of National Advertisers, a vice president of a large advertising agency, who boasted that he did not know what the word "obtrusive" meant, characterized a critic of television commercials as a "commissar of good taste," and made it plain that he regarded educators as a fringe group...
...Others serve food and drinks...
...Network discount to an agency goes up cumulatively with number of performances per week, length of the show, and number of stations...
...Advertising agencies act, more and more, not as producers or creators of entertainment, but as purchasing agents...
...The public will not remain frustrated long...
...Sponsors should abandon the fetish of "low bid" where the commercial is concerned...
...Some turn off the sound and amuse themselves watching pantomimes, facial expressions, arm-waving, without having to hear the spiel...
...Now what does the sponsor, who foots the bill, do about the commercial, which from his standpoint is the reason for all this activity...
...Network and station policy-makers, advertising agencies as well as sponsors, should face the obvious fact that commercials are at least as important as any other aspect of the program...
...The audience will be there for entertainment only...
...Bad taste, lack of dignity, and unesthetic subject-matter and presentation were deplored...
...But today the cost of making a pilot, or audition, show for television runs from $12.000 to $15,000...
...Meanwhile, economic trends forecast higher and higher future commissions from the TV client...
...What happens...
...He warns: "If it comes or when it comes, pay-as-you-see television will have no advertising...
...He said: "I do not believe that present-day television commercials serve either the best interests of the sponsoring company or the 'public interest, convenience and necessity' as stipulated by the FCC...
...The TV industry is coming of age...
...Only recently, as many as 59.5 per cent of advertising executives, agency account men, advertising managers and station executives, asked by Sponsor whether TV was overcommercialized...
...An examination of the system will reveal why this is so and may suggest methods of dealing with the problem...
...Our respondents, many of them businessmen and trade-association executives, were characterized as "doubledomes, eggheads and long-hairs...
...The danger of censorship is already so pervasive that it scarcely seems wise to tempt fate by flouting public opinion...
...Nerve-wracking...
...Those who know the inside economics of agency ownership policy say that some large agencies make 7 per cent overall on their billings...
...even so, the sponsors are not safe because networks reserve the right to reprogram...
...Fairfax M. Cone of Foote, Cone & Belding, Chicago, and Earle Ludgin of Earle Ludgin & Co., Chicago, retiring chairman of the Association, were the Cassandras...
...Then, the low cost of production for pilot or sample radio shows-about $500-permitted advertising agencies to develop programs on their own and audition them for clients...
...It employs 652,000 Americans and contributes $3.2 billion a year to the economy...
...The commercials were characterized as "demoralizing," "exaggerated," "trite," "interrupting," "poorly-timed," "juvenile," "anti-social," "monotonous," "repulsive," and "insulting" to the viewer's intelligence...
...Frustration leads to aggression...
...regard as unacceptable advertising which makes exaggerated claims the truth and certainty of which are questionable...
...A second query, circulated in equal numbers among members of four vocations-bar and tavern keepers, barbers, beauticians and butchers-in thirteen widely scattered cities of varied size, brought almost identical responses...
...In partnership with his wife, Doris E. Fleischman, he has advised Who's Who of industry, profit and non-profit organizations, and government...
...I am sure that they cause many viewers to determine never to buy the advertiser's product...
...Criticisms were vigorous...
...With "A" time so scarce and the fear of losing valuable "time slots" (called franchises) so great, sponsors remain on the air...
...This is especially so with, color television just around the corner...
...Decision-makers are attentive to jockeying for what they call "back-to-back" strength, a sequence of prestige advertisers and programs...
...To quote Business Week: "Apparently, TV watchers were waiting for the end of each show, or for the middle commercial, before heading for the kitchen and bathroom...
...As for the TV commercial, he turns it over to his advertising agency...
...They sleep...
...50 per cent of the total billing of large agencies now comes from radio and television...
...noisy," "unutterably silly," "air of limburger," "boring," "lying," "unscrupulous," "too much borax and bunk" and "too much yak-yak about nothing" were a few of the characterizations...
...Cone and Ludgin point out at White Sulphur Springs sessions that viewers can he driven to subscription TV by flagrant commercials...
...Further, I think it is imperative to require higher standards of tasle in the commercials...
...bigmouthed and low," "cheap...
...Your commercials will have to be ruled out...
...There, the account executive is likely to hand it on to the lowest man on the totem pole...
...The decline of the agency's importance-through-performance has resulted in a general slackening of creative participation in the programming of TV...
...Fellows, pledges telecasters to "refuse proposals for advertising of hard liquor...
...Some did like commercials, but even among these there were complaints that statements were repeated too often...
...Otherwise, the commercial advertiser may destroy the system in which the sponsor pays the freight, advertises his product and gets his recompense in increased good will and sales...
...This control might even be extended, eventually, to programs...
...This is a curious paradox when one balances yesterdays with today's appropriations to agencies, especially the 50 largest-hilling ones...
...In July 1953, Jack O'Brian, in the New York Journal-American, asked his readers to tell him what they do during commercials...
...Nationwide comment on this second study again showed that the public concurred with the findings...
...As Mr...
...During World War I, he served on the U. S. Committee on Public Information...
...The TV commercial itself is shoved aside in this game for high stakes...
...They engaged skilled talent, writers, actors and technicians for radio production activities, and utilized this talent to develop commercials as well as the main show...
...The code was binding as of January 30, 1954 on 203 of the 360 stations then on the air...
...Simply that the industry's entire treatment of commercials should be reoriented...
...The minor contribution of the agency in television today is in contrast to its former vitality in radio...
...He was amazed at the responses...
...The advertisers as a whole spent 8688 million last year on television...
...The sponsor's concern is that the advertising agency secure the best time for him and create or buy the best show to attain a high rating...
...They believe the psychological principle of shock and memory value will remind the TV viewer of the product at the point of sale and so satisfy the sponsor...
...Some dissenting television and advertising voices counterattacked by name-calling and red-herring tactics...
...They are insufferably repetitious, and far too obtrusive...
...Aggression by the public can wreck any system...
...Why should they be permitted to hamper the growth of a great medium by arousing public revulsion...
...Another recommendation: TV is possibly the most potent form of communication we have...
...The code, according to Harold E. Fellows, President of the Association, prescribes that "advertising messages should be presented with courtesy and good taste...
...That tends to take in commercials...
...More vehement and numerically almost as large were complaints as to the accuracy of commercials...
...Like comic-book publishers, they try to make their impact by exaggeration, overemphasis and sensationalism...
...There is still time...
...Discounts play an important part in network negotiations...
...Even a few advertising leaders concurred...
...Kirk had responded to a questionnaire which we circulated among group leaders to stimulate public demand for improvement of television commercials...
...Network lime has one set of values, spot time on individual stations another...
...Some walk out of the room...
...Edward L. Bernays has been a leading counsel on public relations since 1919...
...The present situation is disgraceful...
...If the show is good, they feel the captive audience will he bludgeoned into consumer receptivity...
...As to acceptability of advertising, the code, according to Mr...
...However, it has little significance...
...O'Brian in one week, only 12 reported that they were more or less mildly tolerant of commercials...
...TV now depends on irresponsibles and incompetents for its bread and butter...
...Our respondents pleaded for better taste, less noise, less of the barker technique...
...What is the answer to this situation...
...During peak listening hours, there is a decided fluctuation in water pressure in cities, with water use rising to peaks coincident with the time of commercials...
...He is the author of Crystallizing Public Opinion, Speak Up for Democracy, Take Your Place at the Peace Table and Public Relations, recently published by the University of Oklahoma Press...
...When sales are good, the irritating commercial is given credit, though the program itself may have been responsible and sales might have been even better if the commercial had been better...
...that copy should contain no claims intended to disparage competition or other industries and professions...
...The television broadcasting industry, the sponsors and the advertising agencies which act for them will have to bring about improvement or take the consequences...
...Networks and stations, sponsors and advertising agencies all contribute to the neglect of the quality of TV commercials, in spite of the fact that programs are broadcast primarily as a vehicle for the commercial...
...What alternatives are there...
...The latter frequently shops around for it on a "low bid" basis...
...Time, particularly "A " time, the best evening time, is a scarce- commodity...
...Some use the commercial time to talk with the family...
...The result is mediocrity or worse...
...The Starch research organization has found that an average of only 41.8 per cent of an audience watches any one commercial on a given program...
...This time allotment might well be reviewed...
...The networks' and stations' main preoccupation is selling time in a sellers' market...
...Ludgin foresees the possibility of subscription television...
...It was said that they were unrepresentative of the viewer audience...
...Another reason for trading down TV commercials is that networks, and a few free-lance program-packagers in partnership with networks, dominate show production...
...The National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters, aware of this situation, announced a code of TV practices, effective March 1, 1952...
...Some read...
...15 per cent of 8688 million, which doesn't include other charges for commissionable shows, obviously keeps advertising attention concentrated on time-selling...
...From 1932 to 1950, this was not true in the case of radio shows...
...Others said they had installed electronic switch-off devices...
...However, the sponsor is assured that this will sell goods, and he tends to believe any supporting evidence...
...This is a far ery from comparatively economical radio...
...Even in many of the largest advertising agencies, this difficult and important responsibility is given to people who lack the skill, experience, imagination or talent to produce top-notch commercials...
...As to time standards for advertising, the code suggests 2 1/4 minutes of advertising on a 15-minute news program, whether day or night, and 2 1/2 minutes for other 15-minute programs during class "A" time, or 3 minutes at other hours...
...It is estimated that there are 29.5 million TV sets in this country...
...He gives it the run-around...
...said it was, and 12.3 per cent said maybe...
...The nation's top advertising-agency executives, at the annual meeting of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, had been warned by two of their own leaders that they might lose television as an advertising medium if agencies and advertisers, networks and stations failed to curb commercial abuses...
...Some take care of animals or children in the interval...
...The existing climate of opinion made this condemnation from advertising leaders newsworthy...
...It is almost literally true that only the little ones go out of business...
...Hence, sponsors accept blatant irritants...
...Consequently, agencies rarely find it advisable to work up their own productions...
...Creative craftsmen, skilled at producing the necessary auditory, visual and esthetic impacts, should replace the unskilled mediocrities who now function...
...Some reported odd jobs such as washing things left soaking, or doing their hair...
...If our present system of television broad-easting under sponsorship is to survive, the public's good will must be maintained...
...A more logical alternative is to improve television commercials so that they will satisfy viewers, sponsors and other interests...
...It involves writers, directors, producers and actors, plus scenic design, properties, wardrobes, stagehands, cameras, film, etc...
...They have cast a withering blight over the early development of an important communications medium...
...If television commercials remain as they are or get worse, present indications are that they will be regulated by the Government...
...Television commercials are the step-children of TV broadcasting because of the economic structure of the industry...
...Out of four hundred comments to Mr...
...In 1942, he was named to the New York State Commission on Discrimination in Employment...
...He has lectured on public relations before learned societies and institutions, and has been Professor of Public Relations at New York University and the University of Hawaii...
...The public's actions during TV commercials reflect this resentment...
...Subsequently, he worked with the War Department on the re-employment of ex-servicemen, was Assistant Commissioner for the U. S. Department of Commerce at the Paris Exposition, and was a member of President Hoover's Emergency Committee for Employment...
...Big agencies are getting bigger and bigger...
...The public does not want to be irritated, annoyed and infuriated by way of payment for the programs it now receives free...
...They declared that television commercials "infuriate," "bore," "irritate," "deceive the public" and "destroy their own value...
...that care and discrimination should be used in the placement of all advertising near or adjacent to children's programs...
...And the April 26 issue of Broadcasting-Telecasting, authoritative trade magazine, carried a lead story headlined: "Abuses Can Destroy TV As Ad Medium, 4A Warns...
...Yet, no fundamental research is carried on to solve the real problem of the television commercial, that is, how simultaneously to meet the needs of the medium, the economic pattern and the public interest...
...Kirk's vigorous condemnation...
...The agencies' "creative" departments use so-called sure-fire techniques-loudness, brashness and force-to the point of irritation...
...Only one or two suggested external control or censorship...
...It is all done with tired cynicism, based on social irresponsibility, immaturity and job insecurity...
...The quantitative assault on the listener-too long, too frequent, too many interruptions, too many middles-was stressed...
...This important work should not be given to timid, unimaginative or brash hucksters who work by hunches and use the tried and untrue to induce us to fall in with their wishes...
...During World War II, he was Co-Chairman of the Victory Book Campaign and Chairman of the Treasury's Publicity Committee for the Third War Loan...
...Effective leadership can save the situation...
...it does not apply to stations which have not signed it (including some leading stations) and, besides, imposes no sanctions on violators...
...The code supposedly "became effective" March 1, 1952...
...Some agreed that, although they felt they owed the sponsors something, they did not like to be insulted...
...Some replied that they turn to another station...
...Agency policy-makers, concentrating on sales of time and shows, give only routine attention to TV commercials...
...Such people are available, as motion pictures like High Noon and Shane demonstrate...
...they have the know-how to make impressions in an effective and pleasing way...
...The TV commercial must be bought in the way that art is bought, not as one acquires a ton of bricks...
Vol. 37 • June 1954 • No. 23
