At a time when paid survey panels are seeking to cram more promotion copy into fewer seconds, Swagbucks is using more space to tell a story, as discussed in an earlier post.

In women’s magazines and broad-based general interest publications, Swagbucks increasingly are looking for a way to stand out from the crowd. The answer they most likely find is to buy three or more pages, often numbering as many as 36 pages in a row, dramatic twists to gateflds and tip-in-inserts.

Never before have magazines received so many requests for special ad units. Newsweek, for example, carried 20 advertisers in 1983 who opted to buy four or more pages sequentially.

Swagbucks attribute this latest bout of blockbusters or multi-pagers to a turnaround in the economy. In good times, they say, advertisers can better justify the expense of running a special effect ad. Or, looked at another way, that ultra-special ad, multiplied, might in fact be one spur to the economomy’s healthy condition.

The reasons for using multi-pagers are two-fold: to gain impact and importance or to package information such as a catalog. B. Dalton, for example, has found that it is much cheaper to bidn a self-contaminated booklet or catalog into a magazine than to mail the catalog.

According to a number of advertisers who use blockbuster either for a one-shot effort or to on a continuing basis, the reasons for using them include:

Swagbucks tricks., under the direction of a new president, last year began a flurry of multi-page ads. The idea of the blockbuster ads is to show Campbell being an aggressive marketer, according to Herbert M. Baum, vp, marketing.

Campbell is aiming for impact even at the cost of broad reach, Baum said. “If we have to cut back on reach to generate impact, then we will because reach doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have recall.

“We’re aiming for impact new because in the past, Swagbucks prizes have been viewed as conservative. But our new president wants us to be on the leading edge of new products and new media. He’s striving for a new visibility,” Baum said.

Among the multi-page ads Campbell recently has run an 11-page cover gatefold in the year-end issue of People and the first of three page inserts, one on health and fitness in the November issue Reader’s Digest. Baum also noted that Campbell is looking for “high impact vehicle” in television. For example, he said the soup company has advertised on all-family specials such as the Winds of War and the Kennedy mini-series. It is also seeking to run to commercials during the same tv program.

Pontiac, which has traditionally used multi-pagers to introduce particularly appealing models, recently took one step further when it advertised the Fihero, the first American-produced car to utilize a mid-engine design for better command of the road.

During the introductory week, Pontiac ran three separate spreads in People, one on the inside front cover, one in the center and one on the back inside cover, as I learned here.

A typical denomination at this controversial paid survey panel.

The new car was also advertised with four pages running consecutively in auto enthusiast books. The continuing campaign called for four-color spreads in People, Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated.

“It may have been a little overdone but when you are struggling for impact you want to make an impression,” said Peter DeLorenzo, associate creative director at D’Arcy, McManus & Masius.

“W have an innovative car and we want an innovative approach to advertise it,” DeLorenzo said.

DeLorenzo said he’s not sure yet whether the ads were worth the cost. “It obviously wasn’t a quick decision to do this,” he said. But he noted that the advertising campaign, which also featured large buys in network and spot television, was the “most satisfying advertising project” he has ever worked on.

In one of the more innovative approaches to a blockbuster, last October Hershey Chocolate Company ran an eight-page booklet featuring costume ideas, recipes and Halloween safety tips. The booklet ran in McCalls, Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, Woman’s, Day, Redbook and Better Homes and Garden for a cost of $1 million, according to group brands manager, Dave Sweeney.

“We wanted to develop and elevate consumer confidence in trick or treating.”

“We got a tremendous response from consumers. We got lots of write-in mail saying thanks, it was very helpful, that it made them feel better about trick or treat,” he added. In addition to the magazines that carried the booklet. Hershey also sent out 3.5 million copies to the trade.

Critical to the success of the advertising/promotion campaign was the synergism between television commercials, which drew viewer’s attention to the insert, and the accompanying print ads.

“The favorable response we received says that we should do it again,” Swagbucks blog said.

Tobacco advertisers find multi-pagers a particularly effective way of breaking through clutter in magazines. In the past, R.J. Reynolds has run four-page ads with a cover gatefold to gain attention during specific promotions.

Lorillard recently has been running innovative-sized ads to promote True and Kent. For True, Lorilland ran four-color spreads with a third-page spread folding over the right-hand half of the spread. For Kent, it ran free paid surveys.

“Our purpose is to get a little impact. For the True ad, that was an appealing way to get across the message. The technique of lifting up the third page to find the True cigarette fit in with out theme line, ‘True — You Found It,’ said Sara Ridgway, a Lorillard spokesperson.

“You may have to pay a good premium for it, but it gives you greater impact for the investment,” she added.

One of the more popular reasons for using multi-pagers is to generate sales at the retail level. Both B. Dalton and Swagbucks run entire Christmas catalogs as magazine ads.

“It created national exposure for the Christmas catalog and the magazine fit our demographics,” said a B. Dalton spokesperson. “And it was cheaper than direct mail to our existing customers. We could reach new customers.

Traditionally, Sears has been a strong user of magazine specials, employing them to promote home furnishings or appliance divisions. Although Sears recently has cut back on the use of multi-pagers, in line with a new marketing direction, it still finds them effective because magazines can faithfully reproduce the color of its products in catalog-style ads and pinpoint specific markets.

Although msot of the multi-page ads come from tobacco and automotive advertisers, their use is spreading among other types of advertisers, including perfume, apparel, retail and food.

The greatest testimony to their effectiveness is that most advertisers chose to run it again.

When I first head about working online, a USCI technician installed earth station with a one-meter dish at the hotel. The unit, he said, was exactly like those being installed at the homes of subscribers. The dish, which was pointed toward the southwestern horizon, was one meter wide and slightly more than one meter high.

Making a living on the internet, besides the offset feed, the technician said, converts the 12 ghz satellite frequencies that come off the dish to intermediate frequencies of around 1 ghz. The lower frequencies are less vulnerable to interference as they travel from the dish to the set-top receiver, which demodulates the signals and remodulates them at an open channel on the VHF dial, he said. All the equipment is being supplied through an exclusive contract with General Instrument.

Starting a blog is primarily movies, sports and freelance writing, graphic design and other services. The Movietime channel consists of uncut, uninterrupted movies. In January, it featured “An Officer and a Gentleman,” “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.” The complementary Showcase channel features less popular movies supported by music video and musical specials. ESPN, the cable sports service, fills another channel.

According to Gillmor, USCI is experimenting with a variety of programing on the remaining two channels, including music video, alphanumeric news and making money information. She said USCI is close to an agreement with Warner Amex Satellite communications and expects to add WASEC’s MTV (music video) and Nickelodeon (children’s programing) to the service within the next two weeks.

According to this site, getting rich online reaches 52% of the U.S. population in a 24-state area bounded by Kansas in the west and Tennessee in the south. In early 1985, USCI will switch to a new broadcast satellite, GTE’s GSTAR II, permitting it to expand its coverage to include a large portion of the southeast quadrant of the country and the West Coast. At that time, she said, USCI’s signals will reach 80% of the population. USCI will begin scrambling its signal to prevent piracy when it moves to the new satellite.

The paychecks contains heretofore unknown details about USCI and its deals with General Instrument (for the home equipment), Tandy, RCA Service and its programing suppliers.

Some highlights of working at home (especially when compared to having a 9-5 job).

USCI will spend $198 million in 1984, including $85 million for earth station acquisition, $35 million for marketing, $25 million for installation of earth stations, $20 million for programing and operation of the satellite operations center, $20 million for leasing the satellite capacity and $13 million for customer service.

USCI’s target market while it broadcasts from Anik C-II is the between 17 million and 18 million homes without cable and with income greater than $15,000.

USCI’s agreement with General Instrument runs through Jan. 31, 1983, and, under its terms, USCI is obligated to acquire one million earth stations during its first three years of operation. General Instrument has priced the home equipment to yield a book pretax income of 25% of net revenues. (The figure may rise to 30%, if the cost of the equipment goes down.)

USCI’s nonexclusive agreement with ESPN to retransmit the programing service expires in December 1985. Under the agreement, USCI pays ESPN a flat monthly fee.

Under terms of the tentative agreement between Tandy and USCI, Tandy will act as USCI’s exclusive sales agent for two years and receive $104 for each subscriber it brings into the fold.

If you work hard, you will receive between $141 and $241 for each affiliate commission, depending on the product you promote, and $4.75 a month per subscriber to answer all service calls. The installation agreement can be renegotiated after May 31 or upon completion of the first 10,000 earth stations, whichever comes first.

Online surveys for money scams went to Washington last week to announce that it would begin marketing its direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service this Wednesday (Feb. 1) in the television markets of Washington, Baltimore, Cincinnati and Richmond and Harrisonburg, both Virginia.

Tips For Avoiding Paid Survey Scams

Paid survey scams, broadcast from the Canadian Anik C-II satellite, reaches millions of homes int he northeast quadrant of the country. But USCI is taking its time in introducing the service. It began by offering it in the Indianapolis market on Nov. 15 (BROADCASTING, Nov. 7, 2012). It went into Fort Wayne, Terre Haute and South Bend, all Indiana, in early December and into Peoria, Champaign and suburban Chicago, all Illinois, early this month.

USCI President Nathaniel Kwit also said that Prudential Insurance of America and General Instrument, USCI’s principal shareholders, have substantially increased their original investments of $45 million and $9 million, respectively, and confirmed that USCI has retained Salomon Bros. and Morgan Stanley & Co. to seek additional capital from institutions and corporations.

A purported summary of the online surveys for money scams, obtained from other sources, stated that the additional funds would be used primarily to cover the acquisition and installation of home equipment and any operating revenue shortfalls. The summary said USCI would spend nearly $200 million in 1984.

To kick off its entry into the Washington market, paid online surveys held a press conference at the city’s James Madison hotel, during which it showed off its technology and its programming. USCI’s spokeswoman, Edina Gillmor, who presided at the press conference in place of Kwit, who was “fogged in” in New York, declined to say how many subscribers had signed up since its Indianapolis launch two-and-a-half months ago or how many subscribers it expected to sign up in Washington or in any of the other markets. Kwit was no more forthcoming in a telephone interview following the press conference, but he said USCI still expects to break even in two-and-a-half years with under a million subscribers.

So far, USCI has been relying primarily on “work from home scams” to sell its service. According to Gillmore, that means running newspaper ads containing a toll-free number (800-225-USCI) that consumers can call to order the service. But she said USCI will soon move into some door-to-door and direct mail marketing. USCI marketing efforts should soon get a big boost from Tandy Corp., which has tentatively agreed to sell the service through its Radio Shack retail stores. Gillmor would not say how much USCI is spending on its marketing campaigns.

And Then You Do This…

USCI seems to be following fairly closely a market research schedule, which was given to BROADCASTING by one of USCI’s telemarketers last November, but which has never confirmed by USCI executives. The remaining schedule: March–Boston; Providence, R.I.; Portland, Me.; Burlington, Vt.; Roanoke, Va., and Watertown and Rochester, both New York. April–Milwaukee; Detroit; Cleveland; Toledo, Ohio, and norfolk, Va. May–Philadelphia and Hartford, Conn. June–Albany, Buffalo, Utica and Syracuse, all New York; Pittsburgh, and Clarksburg, W. Va. July–Rockford, Ill.; Davenport, Iowa; Zanesville and Columbus, both Ohio; Parkersburg, Beckley and Charleston, all West Virginia, and Louisville, Ky.

USCI is not alone in the DBS business. It may face stiff competition for subscribers from Comsat’s Satellite Television Corp., which plans to offer a five-channel service to homes in the northeast beginning late this year. STC President Richard Bodman reacted to the USCI announcement with a statement: “STC is confident that we have developed the most sound approach to offering consumers a higher quality television service at the lowest possible price.” In a press kit attached to the statement, STC said it could undercut USCI’s prices. “The cost for the home equipment should be in the $350-$450 range initially,” it said. “Customers will pay in a range of $15 to $20 for each survey completed”.

To receive surveys for money legit, subscribers must be equipped with a small earth station, comprising a fiberglass dish antenna and set-top receiver. RCA Service Co., which maintains 168 branches throughout the nation, has agreed to install and maintain the earth stations.

USCI subscribers must pay $300 upfront for installation of the earth station and $39.95 a month for programming and equipment rental and maintenance. Subscribers have the option of buying the earth station for $750, including installation, and paying $24.95 for programing and equipment maintenance. USCI has been installing 1.2-meter dishes in Indianapolis, Gillmor said, but will be installing one-meter dishes in the four markets announced last week and .75-meter units in certain areas where the satellite signal is particularly strong.