Self-Help Groceries – New Year

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This series of spoken advertisements ran on the Commercial Broadcasting network in the summer of 1950 - 1951. They inform radio listeners about specials at Self-Help stores on summer essentials – such as cordials for cool summer drinks, and jellies and custards for cold desserts.

The advertisements are presented by a "shopping reporter," who calls himself "Dick Playfair." The shopping reporter was a standard of commercial radio from the 1930s until the early 1980s. Often a position given to a young woman, this broadcaster's role was to make recordings for advertisers, reporting on their latest specials or in-store promotions.

As technology advanced, shopping reporters could eventually broadcast live from the advertiser's premises to encourage listeners to "visit today."

Today, you may still hear the "live-cross" to a broadcaster running a sausage sizzle in a local car sales yard on a Saturday morning, or a radio station's promotional vehicle (such as the ZM Black Thunders) parked outside a local business giving away prizes. These are the modern descendants of the shopping reporter of yesterday.

Image: Unidentified sales representative gives a sample of Nescafe coffee to a shop customer, during the opening week of Self Help store, Wellington. Evening post (Newspaper. 1865-2002): Photographic negatives and prints. Ref: EP/1956/2502a-F. Alexander Turnbull Library http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23096694