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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
VOL. LXIV. No. 12
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York, March 24, 1917
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Advertising as a Trade Force
N
O art has been subjected to such rapid advancement as has the art of advertising, and each forward step
is the result of earnest study on a strong foundation of experience. In the "evolution of publicity the
most radical change has been in the theory of what constitutes good advertising.
It was only yesterday, we might say, when it was believed that to be effective, an advertisement
must virtually be shot at the reader. Advertisements printed upside down, or appearing in all corners of a page;
immense signboards, erected for size rather than for artistic effect, were all considered in the category of good
publicity.
*"-••
What a change, however! To-day advertising has reached a point whe/e elegance and refinement are the
rule. It is so arranged as to appeal to people who are apt to use the artidjgxploited. It is not written above their
heads. It is comprehensible, full of "human interest," and so designed, l^ro in the matter of illustration and text,
as to arrest attention.
No sane business man can hope to succeed without the aid of advertising. The finest products, whether
pianos or any other line—manufactured with the best artistic conceptions in view—cannot win their proper
meed of appreciation without publicity. Success in the corani ^cial sphere can only be secured when the product
and publicity are properly and judiciously linked.
**
The whole matter in a nutshell is that with tht?.^, jtjtknw -^.die country, the bringing of its commercial
interests into closer contact, and the increase i the nurr 1 .^
.indiums, advertising has developed into a great
system, which is becoming greater continuously.
In olden days, advertising was frowned upon by the majority of reputable business houses, just as about
one in a thousand pretend to frown upon it to-day. A few useful things were advertised, but the subjects were
usually novelties for which it was necessary to create a demand.
Staples sold themselves in those times, and reputable business liaises avoided the advertising columns as
they did bad credits. There were fewer publications. The Country was smaller. Business centered on .neigh-
borhoods. It took years for New York ideas to reach the Mississippi. Railroads were fewer; mail service
less efficient, and a broad national movement as affecting trade-marked articles almost unknown. Billboards
were for the circus and theatrical troupes. A merchant might print a small card in his local newspaper, but the
department stores were yet unborn. To have used advertising then as a distributing force would have been as
much ahead of the times as trying to make an x-ray diagnosis with gas light.
To-day, however, advertising really distributes, and its uses are now almost wholly commercial. The swindler
is being elbowed out by publishers on one hand, and. snapped up by postal inspectors on the other.
Advertising is the voice of our superb system for carrying things wherever they are wanted. It publishes
news of commodities nationally, and the business houses can use it either to build national demand, or to find out
by experiment that the commodity in question is not wanted on a national scale.
The growth of industrial America has been synonymous with advertising, and this is particularly true of
the situation in the piano trade. The successful piano houses, both manufacturers and dealers, are believers in
advertising.
Publicity in this industry has kept fully up to the artistic character of the goods represented, and there are
very few months when the prominent magazines, which devote themselves to the advancement of the art of
advertising, do not compliment some piano house upon tlie effectiveness of its publicity, even reproducing and
praising the character of the announcement and the artisticness of its appearance.
This is a healthy sign, and it is also worthy of note that the music trade concerns that do advertise are those
who are marching toward a greater business expansion, and a greater measure of prosperity.