Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUJIC TFADE
VOL.
LXVI. No. 2
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. Jan. 12, 1918
Single Copies 10 Cents
$3.00 Per Year
Advertising an "Essential" in War Times
T
HERE are many firms in many lines of business in the United States today, some few of them, perhaps,
in the piano trade, whose names are going to be practically forgotten by retailers and the public when
the war comes to a close. These are the concerns which, through lack of courage or for other reasons
due to the war, have set about curtailing expenses by cutting down, or eliminating, their advertising
appropriations, and making dead issues of their sales departments.
The stock argument of such concerns is that, having demands far in excess of their output and having no
excess to sell to the general trade, they consider it a sheer waste of money to advertise or to keep salesmen on
the road. ]n other words, they are living in the present rather than in the future, and while in that frame of
mind they are willing for the sake of a few thousand dollars to sacrifice all the reputation and prestige that have
taken years of effort, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps, to build up.
Shakespeare's reference to the value of a good name applies just as strongly to a business house as it does
to the individual. A business establishment may sacrifice actual business and suffer severe financial loss, but, if
the name and reputation are preserved intact, it can rebuild its fortunes on that foundation with remarkable
rapidity. Lose that reputation and name, and the rebuilding of the business becomes a slow, tedious process.
Every concern doing business in the music trade at the present time is by that very fact proving that those
behind the venture hope and expect to maintain their position in the trade during the war and until peace brings
with it fresh opportunities. Were that fact not so, and did the business men feel that the war was going to
eliminate them as factors in the trade, they would have had the wisdom to shut down and liquidate their assets at
the beginning of hostilities on the recognized principle of safety first.
Having, from the fact of their being in business, proved that they hope and intend to stick, the business
men should look to the future and keep themselves prepared for what it will bring forth. They must first of
all keep their names before the trade and public, by advertising, and the money thus spent is not money thrown
away by any means. It is money definitely invested for future dividends. The advertising it buys not only insures
permanence of name value, but develops a cumulative effect that will be fully realized when normal conditions
return and the market shifts so that the manufacturer must seek orders for his surplus, rather than turn down
orders for goods he cannot produce.
Next to advertising must come the personal contact, and what this means has already been exemplified by
houses prominent within our own trade, and among which the talking machine companies are shining examples.
Traveling men are being sent over the country right now with instructions not to take an order, and their sal-
aries and expenses simply constitute an investment for the future. By their visits to the wholesalers and dealers
they are maintaining and cementing the relations that have long existed between their firms, as manufacturers,
and the retailer. P>y word of mouth they can explain conditions and give assurances that could not be success-
fully conveyed by any written message, no matter how ably it might be composed.
1'eing acquainted with the trade, these travelers are frequently able by their advice to show the retailer how
to keep going with a limited stock, how to realize the most out of his business under existing conditions, and how
he may not only survive but survive at a profit until good times come again.
The concerns which will reap the harvest when harvest-time comes will be those which have had the courage
to push their businesses in the face of war, and the foresight to maintain their advertising campaigns and keep
their sales organizations just as close to normal as conditions will permit.
The business men who lose courage and plan to hibernate during the period of the war arc, unless peace
comes unexpectedly, going to find themselves and their business forgotten, and their names but distant memories.
The time the live ones spend in going ahead, the others must spend in starting again, a handicap which no sen-
sible business man desires to have placed upon him.