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THE MUSIC TRADE
advertisements for the new year in point of extent and beauty will
surpass some of those which have been previously put forth.
T
HE player in order to be sold largely must be advertised largely,
and it does not pay to slacken it in the publicity department
in the slightest. Some years ago there was a great soap concern in
Cincinnati, the proprietors.of which believed after having expended
a vast sum of money in advertising that they could well afford to
drop out,of public notice for a year or two, that the impetus given
their business by their large advertising investments would carry it
forward at a pace which would show no slackening. The first three
months after their advertisements had been discontinued they were
astonished at the slowing up of trade. The next six months aston-
ishment had been supplanted by vague misgivings as to where their
business had gone to. At the end of the year it had shrunk to such
meagre proportions that they were much concerned as to its future,
and like sensible business men they concluded that they had made a
vital mistake in withdrawing their advertising appropriations and
the next year instead of placing them at the old standard, they were
compelled to double their expenditures to regain their lost position.
I
N England only a few years ago the bicycle business was said to
have become defunct. In fact, its obituary notice had prac-
tically been written, when a few of the live members of the trade
decided to get together and see if they could not pump a little life
into the corpse and resuscitate it through the instrumentality of
advertising. They planned a campaign which meant the expendi-
ture of much money and as a result they not only pumped new life
into all the trade arteries, but they caused the business to grow at a
pace which astonished even those who had held to optimistic views
as to its future, and for the past year the great factories at Coventry
and Birmingham have been running day and night in order to sup-
ply the demand for bicycles.
Some business men attribute the collapse of the wheel in this
country to the fact that when the bicycle trust was formed—which
afterwards went to pieces—the managers thought they could well do
away with advertising, and save that money for themselves; they
saved the money all right, but the business went to smash, and as a
result the bicycle became unpopular—in fact, it is rarely ever used
nowadays as a means of pleasure, but simply for business purposes.
O
F course, it may be said that the rise- of the automobile has
driven the bicycle out of business. We take no stock in this
theory, because there are hundreds of thousands of people in Amer-
ica who are not able to own an automobile and never will be, but
who would purchase a bicycle at a moderate price and enjoy it dur-
ing their leisure hours, if their attention were drawn constantly to
it through the periodicals which they scan. The automobile men
keep up enormous advertising, and perhaps there is more automobile
advertising in the great magazines than that which relates to any
other special article produced.
A great many piano dealers say that the continued growth of
the automobile business has injured the retail piano business. To
our minds this view is not a correct one, for last year there were
more automobiles sold than ever before, but there were also more
pianos produced and sold than ever before in the history of the
piano industry. This year there will be practically the same record
repeated in both industries. So long as there is a continued increase
of piano sales how can the automobile properly be said to have cut
into it or ever to have affected it detrimentallv?
N
A
O matter how we may figure the rise or fall of a special trade
it goes back to the question of publicity, and piano manu-
facturers realize more than ever before that it pays to be constantly
in evidence before the public as well.as the trade. And they realize,
too, that in their appropriations trade journals of prominence and
usefulness should not be overlooked. They know that the dealer
must,first be interested, and that no matter how much they-adver-
tise, if it is merely to send people into the nearest piano stores and
ask them for "So and So" pianos they themselves cannot benefit
unless they have established agencies in those sections of the coun-
try where inquiries are directed.
A piano manufacturer who plans to spend money for magazine
advertising had better turn the same outlay to almost any other
channel unless he has a string of agencies covering the principal
cities of America. A dealer will not take on a piano simply because
a manufacturer can show him that through his magazine advertising
REVIEW
he has received a large number of inquiries from his particular dis-
trict, and that if he will take on his piano, he will be glad to turn
these prospects over to him. That will not do. The argument is
not convincing. Again the dealer is not going to write for an agency
simply because Mrs. "Blank" dropped in and asked if he carries
"Merit" piano which she saw advertised in "Everybody's." On such
occasions a salesman will not lose the opportunity of presenting not
only a "just as good piano," but " a mighty sight better piano," and
the advertising of the manufacturer will, to a large extent, have been
diverted to a competitor's advantage. The only way to make ad-
vertising pa}' is to constantly interest both the trade and the public,
and to have such a combination of agencies that magazine advertis-
ing will help dealers who are regularly established factors for the
instruments which are advertised in the various periodicals.
I
T seems more than passing strange that in a country like this,
where nature is so lavish with her gifts, and where there is
such abundant wealth cropping out all over the surface of the earth,
in agricultural yields, or beneath the crust in vast mineral wealth
that there should be such a condition as money stringency. It seems
as if we ought to be well enough advanced in business matters to
remove all possibilities of a tightness of the money market, and that
business should not be hampered or interfered with in the slightest
by temporary stringencies which have existed at intervals for years
in the financial centers.
Every man in this trade, whether he manufactures pianos or
sells them, is interested in some kind of a currency reform plan
which shall relieve the situation.
It is said in this connection that the plan proposed by repre-
sentatives of the banking and commercial interests will be embodied
in a bill to be presented at the coming session of Congress. Surely
our financial men ought to be great enough to grapple successfully
with this problem which has hampered America for some years, and
there should be no difficulty in securing the passage of the bill which
shall relieve the situation.
S
UCH a condition will help the piano industry. It is said the
main point about the proposed legislation is the enlargement
of the note-issuing function of national banks, this, of course, carry-
ing with it the repeal of the existing law, which limits the retirement
of bond secured notes to $3,000,000 per month. In addition, the bill
will call for the deposit in national banks, without collateral security,
of all public moneys above reasonable working balances, the banks
to pay two per cent, interest on such deposits.
There is no question that the enactment of a law of this char-
acter would give to our currency system much of the elasticity now
so greatly needed, and result in the supply of money being readily
increased when needed, and contracted when the exceptional demand
has passed by. The public funds, too, accumulated through the
surplus receipts of governmental revenues, and which, since they
belong to the people, should be at their disposal, instead of being
locked up in idleness, will again flow into the channels of trade,
where they are badly needed. In this way an end would be put to
the appeals to the Secretary of the Treasury from financial circles,
that are now so frequent, for since under the proposed change in
our system the government would make its deposits in national banks
day by day the conditions would be generally known and in case of
money stringency there could be no expectation of relief from Wash-
ington. It would not be a bad move for every piano man to write to'
his representative in Congress favoring such a plan.
IMPLICITY, concentration, force. Such are the qualities of
the piano show window that attracts.
Complexity, overdisplay, frippery, such are the qualities of the
piano'show window that distracts, and the difference between the
piano window that attracts and the window that distracts trade is
the difference betwen gain and loss of trade. Intelligent, well
ordered minds are attracted by display that is strikingly simple, the
display that gives expression to an idea, witho\t losing force. There
are too many piano stores—too many by far—that neglect this im-
portant method of advertising. Too many who do not realize that
the show window is one of the finest advertising spots that can be
located.
Now that the holiday season is near it would be well for dealers
to plan some unique and original show window decoration effects
that would attract the attention of the public to the idea that the
piano is about the finest Christmas present that could be made,
S