Advisory opinion letter to Mr. Tost

(S) Lawrence F. Hennesercer.
(S) Satvarore A. Romano.
Marcu 8, 1971
Dear Mr. Tost:

In accordance with § 1.2 of the Federal Trade Commission’s rules, we are submitting herewith a Request for Advisory Opinion on behalf of MARPOS Network, Inc. concerning a third-party promo-tional program contemplated by that company. Requesting Party MARPOS Network, Inc. (herein Network) is a wholly-owned subsidiary corporation of Don Fedderson Productions, Inc. a California corporation. | Network proposes to establish a tripartite promotional allowance. program. As a third-party intermediary, Network would enlist suppliers as participants in its program, which will be oriented toward point-of-purchase advertising in retail grocery outlets (locations). The proposed program is not presently in operation and the requesting party is not the subject of any pending investigation or other proceeding by the Federal Trade Commission or any other governmental agency. 1040. Request ‘The Nature of the Program Network has developed a new advertising medium for point-of-sale advertising of consumer products in retail outlets. A central feature of the program is the installation by Network of motion advertising displays. The display device involved constitutes a unique promotional approach in advertising suppliers’ products in retail outlets. 6 Network’s program will be oriented toward advertising products normally sold only in retail grocery outlets. In any situation where a participating supplier featuring one or more products in Network’s program also sold such products in non-grocery outlets competing with grocery stores in the program, Network would expand its program (with appropriate program notification and review safeguards) so as to assure that competing non-grocery retail outlets were offered functionally suitable treatment on terms proportionally equal to those provided grocery stores under the program. :

Network will make it clear to potential retailer participants that they are not required to carry any particular product or products as an incident of the program, and that product advertising -will be selected to assure that only products normally sold by participating retail outlets would be advertised in their locations. ;

In view of the disparate sizes, physical structures and customer traffic among retail grocery outlets, Network has developed three variations of its display approach. , The “Type A” display unit involves a promotional device, which would earry thirty (80) frames moving on a conveyor-type track system. suspended from the ceiling across the center of the retail outlet. Moving in and out of two fixed stations anchored on the opposite walls, the frames travel periodically across the center of the retail outlet. Each sign would be forty (40) inches high and sixty (60) inches wide. Although each unit would be capable of carrying sixty (60) color advertisements (one on each side of the thirty (30) frames), Network might retain some of the sides for the purpose of conducting ‘public service and-related messages. The remaining sides would be devoted to advertisements of products sold by suppliers.

The “Type B” display unit is a variation of the “Type A” device, designed so that it can be installed in retail outlets which, because of their limited lateral size, or some other physical characteristic, cannot accommodate the “Type A” promotional device. This device is installed so that it moves within the store -on a rectangular course, and both sides of each sign would be visible to customers in the retail outlet. In addition, the size of the signs is scaled down to twenty (20) inches high by thirty (80) inches wide to accommodate the size of the retail outlets involved. However, the same number of sides would be devoted to advertising the products of suppliers and the same number of sides would be retained by Network for public service messages as in the “Type A” display. The “Type C” display unit has been designd, with three variations, to accommodate retail outlets which could not utilize in a practical business sense either the “Type A” or “Type B” units: (1) sixty (60) one-sided colored advertising displays suspended from stationary cables installed on the ceiling of “the store; (2) thirty (80) two-sided colored advertising display frames suspended from stationary cables installed on the ceiling of the store; or (3) where neither (1) nor ( 2) would be usable or suitable. Network, as an alternative extension of its program, would provide advertising displays of reduced size