AR Advertising Copy: Accurate, Truthful and Eye-Catching

[tysontom]

One of the defining characteristics of Acoustic Research, Inc. was the quality of its advertising, most notably during the "classic" period from 1954-1973. From the first ad until the last ads done in 1967, each was written and edited by Ed Villchur. His principles for effective ad copy: make it accurate, truthful and eye-catching. He used testimonials, but AR never paid a single person any amount of money for any of these ads. People were given discounts for AR equipment, but no money was paid for any endorsement, at least up through the end of the Ed Villchur era.

I've attached some examples.

--Tom Tyson

[Steve F]

This truly was one-of-a-kind advertising. I've never come across anything like it--in any industry--since, and I've been involved in consumer products marketing for 35+ years. Whenever I've had the opportunity, I've "lifted" a phrase or sentence here and there directly from AR's ads and brochure copy from the Classic period and incorporated it into what my company was involved with at the time. A little "inside baseball," just for me. No one would ever know.

The AR-3 ads were particularly good, and I also liked the second-gen Classic ads, the LST-3a-5-2ax-4x-6 and 7.

You could see a huge fall-off in refinement and quality when Villchur and Allison had left. The 1974 "Astounding Sounding" ad campaign was particularly painful and embarrassing. One ad in this series featured the three 8-inchers--the 7-4xa-6, and the 7 and 4xa were shown as the same speaker! (AR-7 sans grille.) Then came the worst ad in hi-fi history, the AR-8: "The first accurate speaker for rock music."

Tough to believe that AR fell so far so fast, but they did. Completely blindsided by the stereo market's changing demographics (from middle-aged accountants and engineers in the 50's and 60's to hip college kids in the late 60's-70's), AR didn't know what to do. Their product looked old, it sounded dull in dealer showrooms playing Allman Bros, Santana, and ELP, it was not a profitable line to sell (Advent and EPI had protected distribution while AR was widely mail-ordered for 20-30% discount, ruining a retailer's profit margin), and so began the biggest, fastest decline ever in the hi-fi business. From 32% market share in 1965-66 to not one dealer actively supporting and demonstrating the line in the Cambridge Boston area (AR's home turf!!) when I was in college in Boston from 1972-76.

Worthy of a graduate business school case study on how to do every possible thing wrong from a marketing and product development standpoint and ruin a company's standing--in a very short time--in their industry.

A few bright spots here and there followed, but the sustained glory days of the 50's-60's were gone forever.

Steve F.

[genek]

It's also a good precursor of a principle that is today SOP for anyone working in a high-tech start-up (which, by today's standards, is exactly what AR was during the Villchur years except that I never heard anything about Villchur's staff holding any equity). When the founders sell and leave the building, exercise your options and follow them out the door ASAP.

[tysontom]

Not completely following you here. Could you expand a bit on your thoughts regarding, "which, by today's standards, is exactly what AR was during the Villchur years except that I never heard anything about Villchur's staff holding any equity."

[Steve F]

I think Gene means that AR's spirit of innovation and their belief in what they were doing was like the mindset that drives the best of today's start-up hi-tech companies. Except that today's start-ups are funded by VC's and lots of early investors have stock equity that they can cash out if/when the new start-up is wildly successful.

Not looking to put words in Gene's mouth, but that's how I took it.

Steve F.

[genek]

Yes. Someone starts a new company with a new idea and some money, either their own or borrowed, builds it up and eventually sells it to someone with deeper pockets and goes on to do something else. Today the original founding employees often get some equity in the new company, as compensation for higher risk and lower salary compared to working for a larger company, and when the company is sold stand to profit along with the founder. They also usually find that once their boss has left the building they don't like working for the new owners and don't stick around more than a few years, often leaving to start companies of their own. AR's history parallels that of the modern start-up, except that its time founding-to-sale time was much, much longer than today's start-ups, and afaik there's never been any mention of anyone besides Edgar Villchur holding any shares in the company prior to its sale to Teledyne.

[tysontom]

"AR's history parallels that of the modern start-up, except that its time founding-to-sale time was much, much longer than today's start-ups, and afaik there's never been any mention of anyone besides Edgar Villchur holding any shares in the company prior to its sale to Teledyne."

I believe that AR's history parallels that of modern start-up companies in the usual business sense. The company was begun in the summer of 1954 and incorporated by August 10, 1954, and the first AR speakers were shipped in the early spring of 1955, seemingly normal for any start-up company. It's always going to take a few months to get the gears in motion. In contrast, I think it took Hewlett-Packard six or seven months to ship out the first Model 200 audio oscillators to Walt Disney after that company was founded in 1939, so this time period is probably normal for any start-up, industrial-product-based company.

As for other people holding shares of AR stock, there were a number of top- and middle-level employess that held stock other than Ed Villchur. Roy Allison, Sumner Bennett, Gerald Landau, Abe Hoffman and several others held substantial stock in the company. Villchur held 51% of the stock after the Kloss split in February 1957, but the rest of the stock was divided among several stockholders in the company. The company was privately held, of course, until Teledyne, Inc. bought the company in June, 1967.

By the way, AR was a very progressive company and very fair to its employees, particularly during the "classical period." It was considered a great place to work, and it was an equal-opportunity company, even as far back as 1954, and the company's pay scale was higher than the "scale" for the level of work done, when compared with other companies doing comparable work. Beginning in 1957, AR began offering generous profit-sharing benefits to all employees, paid twice a year.

--Tom Tyson

[genek]

The main difference between AR equity as described and the typical modern start-up is that in the modern start-up everybody in the company holds some stock options, not just a selected few.

[tysontom]

Well, that's not exactly what you were suggesting when you said, "and afaik there's never been any mention of anyone besides Edgar Villchur holding any shares in the company prior to its sale to Teledyne."

I would also suggest that there are many contemporary start-up companies in which only the owner or investors have any stake, not the employees or other principles. It's perhaps the exception to the rule that everyone gets stock in a start-up company, as you suggest. It's just that at AR, Villchur did not hold all the cards by any means. He held controlling interest. There were a number of stock holders after Kloss left who had no real investment or risk in the company other than the importance of their position. Several were given stock because Villchur and Abe Hoffman wanted to attract these people and hold on to them. While it is true that the AR management team didn't pass out ownership shares of stock to each and every employee at the beginning, the company did pay out a semi-annual profit-sharing divident based on the company's performance. Many companies today simply would not consider doing this sort of thing.

--Tom Tyson

[genek]

Well, that's not exactly what you were suggesting when you said, "and afaik there's never been any mention of anyone besides Edgar Villchur holding any shares in the company prior to its sale to Teledyne."

Right, because I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere else. With that filled in the distinctions get finer.

The modern start-up as I have described it above didn't exist in the 50's and 60's, so it would have been very surprising if AR had distributed options to all its employees. It was unheard of at the time. I was just trying to identify the areas in which AR actually did foreshadow modern start-up practices, and there were more similarities than there were differences.

[dynaco_dan]

Hi Tom

Thank you for posting the photos.

The rightmost one was one I never saw before.

[tysontom]

Gene,

First of all, I don't follow your point in all of this, comparing AR to modern start-up companies. However, I'm sure you were trying to show how AR was a pace-setter in business start-ups, but the business side of it was not considered in that light back in those days. AR did the things it did because the managers felt it was the right thing to do.

AR didn't distribute "options" to all of its employees, as they weren't called options back in those days, but the company did distribute shares of stock to many of the employees, unlike your original assumption that Villchur possibly kept it all for himself. But in reality, most new companies today do not distribute "options" to all of their employees either, only to select people who most likely gave up something in advance for the opportunity to get a stake of ownership.

If you want to compare AR to modern companies, however, try to see which ones (particularly small ones in this industry, not just large corporations) can match the overall employee benefit package offered by AR. A quote from my article published in Issue No.4, Vol. 33, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, "Edgar M. Villchur—A Tribute:"

"It was AR's policy to pay above-average industry wages (approximately 10% higher than area standards) and offer excellent benefits and working conditions—some benefits almost unheard of in today's business climate. Nevertheless, after 1957, AR began paying a semi-annual wage dividend to company workers based on company profits. The company also provided a number of fringe benefits for all employees, such as major-medical insurance, life insurance, disability, sick-pay insurance, pregnancy-separation pay, paid holidays, bereavement pay and paid vacations. AR paid to offset jury duty or Military Reserve obligations for up to two weeks and as an expression of appreciation, provided a small U.S. Savings Bond for employees who got married or who had a baby and reimbursement for tuition, "study grants," in approved schools for job-related and non-job related studies. AR had an effective non-discrimination policy (race, religion, sex or age) for employees, which proved not only fair but beneficial to the company in attracting talented individuals who might otherwise have been passed over at other companies. AR also made non-interest loans to employees for emergency purposes, and employees could purchase company products at a discount slightly below dealer cost. Free donuts and coffee were available throughout the day during breaks."

©Tom Tyson 2011-1012 USCO 1-697893168 All Rights Reserved

[genek]

However, I'm sure you were trying to show how AR was a pace-setter in business start-ups, but the business side of it was not considered in that light back in those days. AR did the things it did because the managers felt it was the right thing to do.

Yes, that was the point, but somehow the point got distracted by the specifics. It would be great if companies did what they do today to retain good people because the founders felt it was the right thing to do, but let's face it, doesn't happen. I suspect it probably stopped happening at AR soon after Villchur left the building, because I know people who have worked for Teledyne.

[tysontom]

Villchur on advertising: "portray simply and accurately the idea of advanced design."

More EV ads from AR during the "Classic Period."

--Tom Tyson

[soundminded]

The more I look at current "high end" offerings of audio equipment and their staggering prices ($10,000 is barely entry level for a pair of high end speakers these days), the more I appreciate how much value AR products were and still are. What would a faceoff between the best modern audio equipment has to offer and the best classic AR speakers carefully restored and a few tweaks applied be like? How many of the new models would really be clearly better? How many modern speakers could produce bass like AR9 or even AR3?

[genek]

A while back I was at a show and heard a pair of speakers whose sound was reminiscent (though not the same as) what I remembered hearing from AR-9s many years ago. They were by a company called ESP and were called the Bodhran. The bass was fairly remarkable, considering that it had a pair of 8" woofers, but what caught my attention was that they were acoustic suspension, which you don't see much of anymore at any price level. The price on them was (gasp) $16,000.

[dick]

Tom, my favorite ad is the one showing listeners in Grand Central Station. Absorbed listeners obviously pleasantly involved in the music -- it says volumes. Nice that you showed the advertising -- it must have been an admired standard now forgotten by all of MadAve.

Dick

[tysontom]

The more I look at current "high end" offerings of audio equipment and their staggering prices ($10,000 is barely entry level for a pair of high end speakers these days), the more I appreciate how much value AR products were and still are. What would a faceoff between the best modern audio equipment has to offer and the best classic AR speakers carefully restored and a few tweaks applied be like? How many of the new models would really be clearly better? How many modern speakers could produce bass like AR9 or even AR3?

Tom, my favorite ad is the one showing listeners in Grand Central Station. Absorbed listeners obviously pleasantly involved in the music -- it says volumes. Nice that you showed the advertising -- it must have been an admired standard now forgotten by all of MadAve.

Dick

These are both great messages! Great comments.

Here are a few more ads; all but one was written by Ed Villchur. The first one shown here of the AR-5 was written by Roy Allison and others at AR in 1968. Still good, but not quite as clearly written as Villchur's ads written from 1954 until 1967. --Tom Tyson

[xmas111]

I like the first picture of the AR5 buried in the ground.

Got me thinking maybe I can my AR speakers with me when I'm......well you know....

John

[JKent]

I always liked this one from KLH. More truth in advertising: "The Plus is cosmetics, pure and simple."

Kent