co-op money faster

By Robert D. Wilcox Mgr., Retail Advertising Services Armstrong World Industries, Inc.

Sometimes knowing what's needed isn't easy. In a newspaper, fortunately, it is. A copy of the invoice shows what you paid. And the full page tear sheet shows what you paid for.

But what about radio? The invoice shows what you paid all right. But there's no tear sheet to show what you paid it for. An "Affidavit of Per-

Story at a Glance

Proper third part documentation needed forco-op Payment . newspaper, radio, t-v "tear sheets" ways to use them. formance" states that the retailer advertised a certain number of times. Sometimes it tells what he spent, the dates and times at which the advertising took place. Almost always it refers to an "attached script" to show what the content of the advertising was.

This satisfied radio stations fine, but it didn't suit a lot of manufacturers. Many of them felt so strongly about it that they dropped radio from their co-op plan entirely.

This shook up the radio industry.

They got together with the Association of National Advertisers to see what could be done. The answer was simple and predictable. Put everything on the same piece of paper using a simple, tightly written set of words that were agreed uPon bY both the ANA and the radio industrY.

Now radio has its own "electronic tear sheet." The Radio Advertising Bureau promoted it strongly to the industry, and stations bY the thousands started using it. They print it on the bottom oftheir script paper, so that when the script runs, all they have to do is fill in the blanks and sign it. The Association of National Advertisers promoted it heavily to manufacturers who offer co-oP, and today some 500 of them include it as a requirement of their co-oP Plans. Television has a similar "electronic tear sheet" created by their Television Bureau of Advertising, also used widely by television stations.

For the first time, you the retailer are able to use radio and television and get a "tear sheet" readilY accepted by manufacturers.

When you order radio and TV time, make sure the stations know uP front that you're going to need the ANA documentation right on the script and that if you don't get it, you're not going to PaY them!

In that way, you'll be able to get your co-op reimbursement for radio and TV advertising just as fast as you do for newspaper.

Retail Survival Tactics

The need for building sales through market share management and for making significant gains in productivity are stressed as survival requirements for retailers by Dr. William R. Davidson, chairman and chief executive officer of Management Horizons, Inc., retailing consumer products consulting firm in Columbus, Oh.

"Many retailing and marketing executives are fantasizing about a return to normal, or a return to the good old days. Unfortunately for them," explains Davidson, "normal is not what it used to be, but what we have been experiencing so far in the 1980s."

Successful retailers will be those who can make an adjustment. The changes which comprise the new normalities in retailing, Davidson feels, are a direct result of the following conditions: (1) continuing slower economic growth; (2) increased market saturation, or "over-storing;" (3) an increasing number of different types of retail outlets selling almost all product types; (4) continued high rates of inflation on a long-term basis; (5) changing consumer markets (post-World War II baby boomers have reached maturity, and increases in the population of senior citizens); (6) scarcity of time available for shopping in stores, especially due to increases in the number of working women and households maintained by employed singles; and (7) increases in the cost of doing business which will exceed the average retailer's opportunity to increase gross margins.

Although many retailers are under severe pressure, Davidson includes home improvement centers with those better positioned for the times.

Conditions have placed most retailing corporations in a serious profit squeeze, creating a large gap between the profitability required for long-run survival and the average profit performance in nearly all retail trade. However, Davidson feels that satisfactory profits are achievable.

He lists the major opportunities available to retailers to improve performance:

(1) Better use of available market information for improved market area selection, stronger clustering strategies, (Please turn to page 44)