The New York Times September 16, 1983, Friday, Late City Final Edition Advertising: Parental Guilt and Computers BYLINE: By Philip H. Dougherty SECTION: Section D; Page 13, Column 3; Financial Desk LENGTH: 623 words TROUBLED Texas Instruments, having scrapped a short-lived ad campaign that replaced price promotion with product promotion, is now borrowing a page from the encyclopedia salesan's guide and is using the time-tested parental guilt ploy. One of the two 30-second spots created by McCann-Erickson shows a purported 3-year-old and his daddy reaching out to what must be a TI-99/ 4A home computer for the very first time and getting what a voice says is ''a real head start'' ''Don't put it off,'' continues the voice, obviously talking about a purchase, as the camera pans in for the last time on the face of the darling little smiling towhead. In the other spot, it is an older boy (also with a pageboy bob) who is getting math help from a computer as the announcer intones, ''It can give your child a head start in school that could last a lifetime.'' The campaign broke Wednesday on network TV and yesterday the company, eager for some positive news articles for a change, had a press conference at the agency staged by Rogers & Cowan of Beverly Hills, Calif., Texas Instrument's first outside public relations firm. It brought client and agency heavyweights to New York from Texas with the purpose of explaining the reasons for the advertising change. At a meeting in advance of the press conference, the rationale for the new campaign was given by John G. Ayer and Donald C. Scharringhausen of the client, with an assist from James G. Hetherly, an executive vice president of the agency. It all comes down to this: After a considerable amount of consumer research, the company has concluded that the majority of people feel that personal ownership of a computer is inevitable, and the question is not when to buy but what to buy. Consumers do not see any difference in brands, and no one person in the family is making the buying decision. It is, rather, a family decision with dad deciding on how expensive the machine can be. Research also convinced Texas Instruments that much of its early sales successes with home computers, the first model of which, the 99/4, was intoduced in 1979, resulted from purchases by two groups - one known as the early innovators and the other as the novelty buyers. The company believes both of those groups have been pretty well saturated and that the time has come for more aggressive marketing. Mr. Scharringhausen, corporate market communications manager, declined for competitive reasons to say what Texas Instruments would spend for advertising, but did say that it would be a record for the company. Leading National Advertisers, an independent measurer of media advertising, estimated that although the company spent only $8.9 million in all of 1982, it poured out $7.7 million in just the first three months of this year. Of course, that was before the second quarter and its loss of $119 million and the 50-point drop in its stock price. Two of the three print ads already prepared - four-color spreads - pretty much have the same thrust as the TV commercials, the third is aimed at the hobbyist computer buyers. To reach them, the company will advertise in three of the flood of computer magazines now on the market. The schedule calls for ads in 15 other national magazines including National Geographic, People, Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Good Housekeeping, McCall's and The Ladies' Home Journal. The monthlies will start the ads next month and the weeklies in November. The campaign that was scrapped in favor of the kiddies' thrust was one starring Bill Cosby, a Texas Instruments spokesman since 1980. When Mr. Cosby started, he was the first spokesman in computerland advertising, Mr. Scharringhausen said, noting that everyone has spokesmen these days.