Bonds on the Air
Excerpt from Fiske, Marjorie, Bonds on the Air: A Report of the Public’s Choice as to Who is Best Qualified to Sell Bonds by Radio in which Kate Smith Gets her Due Share of Attention, 1944 (permission, Columbia University Libraries, University Archives, Rare Book & Manuscript Library)
Excerpted by Aimee-Marie Dorsten
Contributor’s note: Footnotes from the original. I have preserved the style of the original notes. Underlining has been changed to italics throughout.
This study was conducted as a means of testing statistically certain conclusions developing from an analysis of detailed interviews with listeners to a day-long Kate Smith bondselling marathon. The findings reported herein are based on interviews with 976 people who represent, approximately, a cross-section of the population of greater New York.*
Respondents were asked which of five public figures they would select as the best person to sell bonds by radio and which one would be their last choice.** This question was asked first so those who were interviewed were not aware of any special interest in Kate Smith on the part of the investigator. They were then asked to state reasons for their selection, and this question was followed by a series of questions about bond-buying habits in general and familiarity with and attitudes toward Kate Smith. What happens when such a group is asked to decide whether Betty Grable, Frank Sinatra, Wendell Willkie, Kate Smith or Martin Block is the best person to sell bonds?*** […]
I. Kate Smith—First Choice—62%
A. A considerable majority selected Kate Smith. Martin Block, the radio salesman, came next (13%), with Wendell Willkie a rather close third, while movie star and bandleader tied for last place with 7% of the votes apiece.
B. Men and Women Men and women alike choose her first. The men give way to Betty Grable and Wendell Willkie to some extent, but nevertheless 57% give laurels to Kate Smith as their chosen bondseller.
C. Young and Old She won out too with young and old, but as the men sometimes disregarded her for Willkie and Grable, so the “young” were more inclined to vote for their champion record-player, Martin Block. Frank Sinatra too came in for a greater share of “under 40” votes (most of the those were under 50), but there is little evidence here of the “bobby sock” hypnosis: Kate Smith ranked first in the “under 20” group too.
D. Rich or Poor Kate Smith’s appeal is not respecter of income. Wendell Willkie, on the other hand, has a marked increase in popularity as income increases, while the reverse is true of Martin Block. Betty Grable and Frank Sinatra show less marked differences through the appeal of the former does increase somewhat as income level decreases.
E. Educated and Uneducated People who have been to college are less inclined to vote for her than others, and her greatest appeal is among those with less and high school education, but even in the college group, more than half put her first. The appeals of Martin Block and Betty Grable seem to be relatively impervious to education, while Wendell Willkie goes steeply down and Frank Sinatra goes sharply up as education decreases. […]
II. Why Kate Smith?
A. Her Moral Appropriateness The reasons for selecting the various candidates fell into four rough categories show in the adjacent table (this was a free answer question and the frame of reference from which his candidate was to be judged was left entirely to the respondent). The first category contains such “objectives” or “technical” reasons as “large following”, “good salesman”, “has already been successful in bondselling”, etc. The second category includes such moral judgments as “sincere”, “patriotic”, and “sympathetic”. The third consists of a kind of intellectual appropriateness: “He knows what it’s all about.” The fourth is made up of simple “I like him” responses and the miscellaneous group consists of non-committal remarks such as “he is good” or “better than the others”, remarks which could not reasonably be placed in any of the other three categories.
It is probably entirely natural that the largest group of reasons consists of those in the “technical" category. This is what one would anticipate as a justification for selecting a person for any kind of selling: “he is a good salesman”, “he has a large following”, etc. The two remarkable of these answers are (1) the relative preponderance of “moral” reasons for selecting Kate Smith and (2) the fact that a comprehension of the issues, an awareness of what bonds are for, seemed important only to those selecting Willkie, and even then only to 27 people (25% of those voting for him).
Reasons for choosing Betty Grable and Martin Block are preponderantly in the “technical” class with personal reasons showing as a poor second, while personal reasons rank relatively higher for Frank Sinatra. The almost complete lack of reasons which would fall into the “moral” appropriateness group for Betty Grable and Frank Sinatra, plus the fact that very few people selected them for first choice, would lead to the conclusion that by and large more popularity is not enough to qualify a person as a bondseller—there is also demand for the more special attributes of patriotism, sincerity, etc., which Wendell Willkie and Martin Block have to some extent, Kate Smith to a considerable extent. […]
VI. Practical Implications of Kate Smith’s Bondselling Superiority
A—D The Record
Obviously, Kate Smith can sell no bonds by radio except to those who hear her make a radio appeal. But, judging from past listenership, the chances of her being heard are very great: 68% of all respondents listen to her daily programs—regularly or occasionally, and 55% have heard her make an all-day bond appeal. Of those who never listen to her regular programs, one-third have heard her make an all-day appeal, leaving only about 20% of the total sample who will probably not be exposed to her. (Of this group, 36% nevertheless voted for Kate Smith, with the obvious implications that she is the best person to sell bonds to someone else.)
The chances of her being heard, then, by those who have indicated that they are favorably disposed toward a bond appeal from her are undoubtedly very great—considerably greater, probably, then would be the chances of the other candidates who have neither regular radio programs nor all-day marathons. Had she never made any bond appeals, one would hazard the guess that she would make many sales: people listen to her, they think she is eminently suited to sell bonds—ergo, she should sell bonds. But of the 542 people (54%) who have heard her make an all-day bond appeal, only 9, or 1.6% have actually bought from her. Were this group larger, it would be enlightening to determine who they were in terms of personal background and feelings toward Kate Smith. Since it is small, we can only generalize from radio bond buying habits in general to determine why it is small.