Chapter IV: Advertising
This chapter will touch only lightly on the various types of media available to the manufacturer to help him sell his merchandise to and through the retailer. Its intention is to give basic background information without going too deeply into any one aspect of advertising.
1. Trade Publications: Trade advertising is used to launch new products and to increase the sale of accepted merchandise. No matter how large a manufacturer's selling staff may be or how often these salespeople call on stores, the use of trade advertising is necessary to present new lines to the retailer and to remind him of already successful merchandise he may not be carrying. Both daily trade newspapers and monthly magazines for the trade are used to carry these advertising messages.
Trade advertising is important to all manufacturers but especially to those who wish to expand their distribution and widen their markets. A company that is planning expansion or is developing new merchandise lines must sell its goods to the retailers in a location before it can advertise to consumers in that area.
Goods must be available to consumers before consumer demand is built. It is all very well for General Foods, with over 1,000 accepted products, to introduce a new item directly to the consumer. Their distribution system is already in existence. But this is a far cry from the small, soft goods manufacturer who may have only $100,000 to spend on a campaign to intro. duce a new product and must give some of this to his retailers for cooperative use. If he spent the remainder on consumer-level national advertising, he would be reaching an audience that, in many cases, would not have a local retail outlet for his product. This same money could be used to bring daily, weekly, or monthly messages to buyers, top management and salespeople and thus build the national distribution of his product. Once outlets have been established, the manufacturer can invest in a nation-wide, consumer-oriented advertising program.
2.Newspapers: Newspapers are available to the manufacturer on two rate bases: national advertising rates and local advertising rates. Local advertising, in the form of cooperative advertising with individual retail outlets, has already been discussed in Chapter II. Basically, it gives the manufacturer the opportunity to take large space in a particular city's newspapers by sharing the cost with the retailer and paying the lower local rate. When the manufacturer wants full control of his advertising story in a local market-New York or Chicago or any one of a hundred similar trading areas-he runs his campaign directly, at the higher national advertising rate.
3.Magazines: National magazine advertising should naturally appear in a magazine with the type of readership that the manufacturer desires. A firm producing $1 brassieres will not select an expensive fashion magazine for its product, but it will advertise in a supermarket magazine, movie magazine or in a publication for teenagers. The manufacturer who sells $29.50 corselettes will do just the opposite. In an effort to compete with newspapers, many magazines and Sunday supplements have set up regional issues of their publications. Usually these cover whole trading areas rather than individual cities. For example, many of the women's service magazines have taken an area like metropolitan New York, portions of Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut, and established a regional issue just for this area. It gives the magazines a flexibility that they never had before.
4.Radio: There are three ways that a corset and brassiere manufacturer can use radio advertising. First, he can take time on a specific store's program and share the cost of this time with the store as he does in newspaper cooperative advertising. Second, he can sponsor local programs in selected markets or use spot advertising. Third, he can select a national network program to carry his advertising message.
5.Television: A few large manufacturers have been able to use this medium for both fully-sponsored movies or "specials" and for spot advertising. Unfortunately the television code does not permit showing garments on live models-rather ridiculous when one views bikini bathing suits and ballet costumes in spectaculars. To date, television time has been so expensive that only the largest firms could afford to use it. Its expense is still prohibitive for the small soft goods company.
6. Cooperative Advertising: As explained in the merchandising chapter, co-op advertising was first used in the corset industry in 1902, and is currently accepted by the entire industry. Under the Robinson-Patman Act, a manufacturer must offer cooperation on an equal basis to all competitive retailers.
Other Forms Of Advertising
Manufacturers may also participate in mail enclosures sent out by their retailers with monthly statements to their customers. These programs are planned months in advance. Store needs are usually outlined to the manufacturer and he supplies ~e necessary merchandise to the store in advance of the promo. tional mailing.
Large companies use in-house advertising specialists to assist them and their advertising agencies with plans for advertising campaigns and cooperative advertising. The medium-sized manufacturer usually has an agency to plan and place his advertising, but he either supervises it himself or turns it over to his sales manager.
The small manufacturer can hire someone on a consultant basis to plan and execute his cooperative advertising campaign. He depends on the service department of trade publications to prepare his trade advertising. In most cases he does little consumer magazine advertising. If he does, he usually hires a freelance copywriter to prepare the material
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Last updated January 30, 1998