Sponsors' World

Television advertisers are busily knocking together a strange new world. It is a world in which oranges crack jokes, penguins smoke cigarettes, a Botany Mills lamb gambols about in a necktie, razor blades change themselves, and advertising symbols (e.g., Ballantine's three rings) appear and disappear with the ease of Cheshire cats.

Typical are the contortions of Lucky Strike cigarettes, which prance through a complex square dance. Rheingold beer cans and bottles troop by a reviewing stand, while overhead drones a beer-keg blimp. Sheffield, hawking a soft drink, takes an inexpensive way out: a paper orange with a metal base is scooted across the screen by means of a concealed magnet. Sanka coffee and other advertisers have adapted the novelties (popup techniques and hinged limbs) common in children's books.

Maxwell House has resorted to a human stooge who tries, unsuccessfully, to balance six bags (the product's publicized blends) on his palm. When he fails, he is handed a can of Maxwell House with the triumphant assurance that all the blends are perfectly balanced in the can.

No Hands. One of the eeriest features of television commercials is the disembodied hands whose busy work is described by disembodied voices. These ghostly hands are likely to snap. Ronson lighters on & off, or to whip up a foamy lather of Ivory Snow. Some advertisers just skip the hands and let the product operate mysteriously without visible human help.

A few conservative sponsors settle for sudsy little dramas. Prell shampoo peeps inside the U.S. bedroom to find a wife chiding her husband because his broad shoulders are sprinkled with dandruff. Camel presents vignettes in which someone, usually a pretty girl, battles a sailfish or performs involved dives from the high board. Then, by a process known as Sponsor's Logic, she ties up her athletic skill with her preference for Camels.

No Limits. Texaco has hit a new, and somewhat cynical, note by delivering its commercial through a carnival pitchman who impartially plugs snake-oil cures and Texaco products. The commercial ends abruptly with the sound of a policeman's whistle and the pitchman's panicky flight from the stage.

There seems no legal time limit yet to the TV commercial. Kelvinator Kitchen runs for 15 minutes. Since all the plot activity centers around a refrigerator, a range and a home freezer (all Kelvinators), it amounts to a straight 15-minute plug. The barker in Texaco Star Theater continually fondles Texaco products, performs before a curtain picturing a Texaco gas station, and is supported by a close-harmony quartet wearing Texaco uniforms.

This fall Manhattan's R. H. Macy & Co. joins the animal fanciers with an owl whose, chest lights up with a big "6" (6% saving for cash). To dramatize various features of their service, New York's Chevrolet dealers plan to hire six dwarfs. Fitted with plastic masks and dressed as garage repairmen, the dwarfs will be addressed as Howdy, Quickie, Tidy, Thrifty, Brainy and Brawny.

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