CHAPTER 13 BUILDING A BUSINESS EMPIRE
The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be
struck.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
While I was in my first year in business school in 1961, and three years
before Johnnie Babcock joined him, as I said, my father had moved into
his fourth career in broadcasting. Consulting with Procter & Gamble under
a non-compete contract as the vice president and director of Duncan Hines
foods, he was able to watch one of the world’s great merchandisers at
close hand. It became evident to him that if P&G knew one thing to do
well, it was to advertise. The company had the money to do it on a large
and highly effective scale, and one of the reasons my father sold the Hines
operation to P&G was that he knew he didn’t. P&G took Duncan Hines
cake mixes into the food business big-time— via television.
I remember all the Christmases growing up in Ithaca when my
grandparents and family would gather around the black-andwhite
television to watch talent shows and comedies, and the last thing you
would want to do was to advertise food products on TV. The only foods
that might look OK in black and white would be a bowl of rice or black
olives. Then television made its debut in color, and P&G began shifting ad
dollars away from magazines and into television. The cakes looked great,
and color TV put the eye appeal back into food. My father was sitting on
top of 360,000 shares of P&G stock, and he couldn’t think of a better way
to use this collateral than to break into the broadcast business. Companies
were now pouring money into television advertising.
Working with P&G, Pops realized the full marketing power and
potential of television. He was impressed at the way the Cincinnati
marketing power bought up hours of radio and television time to promote
their many brands. The P&G stock gave him the financial collateral he
needed to borrow at low rates, move to the media side of the equation, and
begin buying broadcast properties.
Johnnie Babcock remembers that in the early stages of building his
broadcast empire my father had him accompany him on visits to large
banks, where he aspired to secure credit and negotiate loans. He had long
ago exceeded the loan capabilities of the Ithaca area banks. Babcock
referred to his ability in this area and his technique as “Banker Up.”
I’ll let Johnnie take it from here.
