Food, department stores team up on ad pitch to homes

How about if your mailbox hands you this slick-paper, four-color brochure advertising extra-ounces laundry detergent, OK- squeeze toilet paper, and case prices on 10W-30 motor oil along with the newest Nina Ricci fragrances and a Miss Californienne gorgette dress with kabuki sleeves at $98?

It wouldn't be exactly like that, but if you lived in Los Angeles, you could be one of the million recipients receiving direct-mail promotional material combining grocery and department store goods from two separate organizations.

TWo subsidiaries of Federated Department Stores Inc., the Ralph Grocery Company and Bullock's, have prepared a combination folder aimed at each other's customers. The togetherness experiment carrying related merchandise in foods and cookware is believed to be ther first in which supermarket items have been offered on a promotional basis along with miles- away department store merchandise.

Item food advertising for supermarkets has generally been confined to full pages in wide-circulation periodicals on Thursdays, along with some sporadic image-fostering TV spots. Direct-mail or house-to-house distribution is not used by many supermarkets. Department stores, on the other hand, have long done well offering fashion items and accessories to credit customers through mailed-out statement and enclosures.

The Ralph-Bullock's brochure is bei ng used both ways.