MEDIA ADVERITISING TOPIC OF CONFERENCE

"Ratings" is the most important word for advertisers who want to make the most of their print and broadcast media advertising dollars.

"Ratings numbers refer to the percentage of population which is reached by media, whether it's radio, television or newspaper," said John Gorby, president of Douglas Britt Co., headquartered in St. Charles, Ill.

Gorby, guest speaker at the annual Business Conference, held at the Show Me Center Wednesday, addressed a standing-room only crowd of more than 200 Cape Girardeau area business owners, marketing people and university students.

The three-hour workshop, sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce University Relations Committee and the Harrison College of Business, was centered around the subject, "Effective Use of Your Advertising Dollar."

Four "need to know" terms were discussed by Gorby in his opening remarks.

"Three of the terms actually pertain to broadcast media," said Gorby, in reference to cume, the number of people listing to a station during a one-week period; AQH, the number of listeners during a typical 15-minute period; and share, the percent of people tuned into a given station.

Ratings, however, pertain to all media. Newspapers may refer to ratings as penetration. For broadcast media, rating is the percent of the population tuned to a given station or program.

"The average rating for a top radio station is three to four percent," added Gorby. He added that a typical rating for a prime-time television show ranged from low double-digits (10 to 12 percent) to the low 20s for a "hot" TV show.

One of the highest rated programs is the annual Super Bowl, which commands a rating of about 46 percent. The O.J. Simpson verdict caught the attentions of Americans everywhere, too, with a 40 percent rating.

The newspaper penetration for this size market is about 60 percent, noted Gorby. "In the case of the local newspaper here, it is 61 percent."

Once advertisers are familiar with the programming and ratings of the media, they have to apply their research to the advertising dollar, selecting which stations and print media to advertise with, and selecting the time and programs geared to the age group they want to hit.

Newspapers offer a number of options -- ROP (color), special sections, inserts and Total Market Coverage (TMC) products. Market research reveals that 57 percent of newspaper readers say they look at every page. But, like radio and television programming, some sections do appeal to certain segments of the readership.

"The workshop was great," said Judith Wilferth, owner of Children's Bazaar.

Wilferth and her husband, Fred R. "Rock" Wilferth, own Crossroads, a 21,000 square feet professional office and retail shopping center at the intersection of Independence and Kingshighway.

"The speaker left us with an important message ... that we need to use multi-media to serve our customers," she said.

Gorby pulled everything together, said Wilferth. "He did a wonderful job of explaining the uses of all the media."

"It was a crash course in media buying," said Mary Spell, of the St. Francis Medical Center public relations department. "Advertising is a big chunk of our budget and Mr. Gorby was very objective in all phases of media advertising."

Gorby's remarks, said Spell, "enlightened me on some things, and jogged my memory on other things."

The session was extremely informative for business people who may not be familiar with area media buying, said Judy Wiles, assistant professor of marketing at Southeast Missouri State University.

"We teach courses in that area," said Wiles. "It's always helpful when a practitioner enforces some of the things we talk about."