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by I. W. SOLOMON - Vice President, Copy Director, Al Paul Lefton Company, Inc.

When the "Lefton Company" was asked the question that you find in the title of this article, a famous remark made by Gertrude Stein came to mind.

Somebody once asked this formidable lady what her attitude was to modern art. She answered, "I like to look at it."

When we were asked our Agency's attitude toward color television we found we could definitely go Miss Stein one better. Our answer is: "We like to look at it. But even more, we like to work at it. Or if you prefer, we like to work with it."

The reasons for our answer to the question are ample enough and clear enough. What's more, we have seen them evolve out of the theorizing stage into the practical everyday world: the world of advertising on television in color.
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The first time we called on color television we did so for intensely practical reasons. We wanted to sell our client's range.

We had to get across a three-point sales story in a 60-second commercial. That sales story was that you can grill, bake or barbecue - and that you can do them all at once - on our client's range.

In order to make our sales message register, we selected three girls: a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead. They were set up as a choral group under the direction of Vaughn Monroe.

Vaughn asked the question: "What can you do on a client range?" The blonde answered, "You grill"; the titian answered, "You bake"; and the brunette in her turn said, "You barbecue."

At this juncture Vaughn said, "Oh no, no, no. Let's have it all at once." Whereupon the three girls in unison said. "You grill, bake and barbecue all at once on a client range."

You can see it was the use of the three girls and the ability of the color telecast to first separate them into the three distinctive portions of the sales message, and then to unify them, which made possible a highly effective solution to the marketing problem. Effective because color permitted a fresh approach.
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Another client for whom color provided a dramatic vehicle to convey important sales points was a Service Company.

The Service Company had developed a jingle used for radio broadcast and desired to extend it into television. Color enabled us to endow the commercials with a warmth, a charm and a strong identity which took them out of the usual field of animation-plus-jingle commercials.

Furthermore, since audiences had become accustomed to seeing their favorite cartoon characters delineated in color on the movie screen, it was only natural that using color for the same basic concept of animation, with animal characters, would have a much stronger impact on the same persons when they were looking at television in their own homes.
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However, it has not been only in network advertising that we have discovered the power and persuasiveness of color. The huge distributing organization, "Raymond Rosen & Company", responsible for distributor sales in the greater Delaware Valley area for RCA Victor products has been sponsoring a newsreel on the ABC outlet in its marketing area.

About six months ago, we began the use of live commercials telecast in color. This immediately won a strong reaction from dealers and consumers.

At last there was a way for a local advertiser to tell the most important merchandising story that appliances had at their command in many years.

As you know, pastel color in appliances has been almost as effective a selling tool as features during the last few seasons.

Color television provided a means of showing customers the exact tones of the new refrigerators, washers, ranges and other articles formerly categorized as "white goods."

While you mipht think that R.O.P. newspaper color would have provided the answer it had certain limitations not imposed by color television. Because of the advance closing date for newspaper color, there was less flexibility as far as merchandise is concerned.

The art work and plates for R.O.P. color are high in cost when used in only a single market. And there was often some difficulty with registration and other technical problems.

But through the use of color television, we could prepare a color commercial on just two or three days notice, fitting it neatly into the plans of the distributors and their working arrangements for cooperative advertising at the dealer level.
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Right now the Agency is experimenting with color television for two of its major food advertisers. Our enthusiasm is very high. We have seen the tremendous value of R.O.P. color in newspapers and we can't wait to harness the greater power that is inherent in color television.

Recently a color advertisment we prepared for "General Baking Company" scored the highest Starch readership of any national advertisment in the same issue of the newspaper. It scored so well through the use of art work of children eating donuts - all in full color - imagine what the effect will be when we can show these youngsters actually eating their donuts and drinking their milk as the camera dollies in for a full screen closeup in color of a golden Bond donut frosted with thick chocolate icing, flanked by a glass of cold milk or a sparkling soda - Make
you hungry? Put down this magazine and send out for your "coffee and ---------."

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Typical color TV commercials produced by Al Paul Lefton for clients.
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