Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
REVFW
THE
flUJIC T^ADE
VOL. LXIX. No. 23
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
Dec. 6, 1919
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Advertising Is Business Insurance
T
HE question, "Why advertise when you cannot meet current demands of dealers and the public ?" is about
as logical as asking why pay life insurance premiums when you are perfectly healthy. For advertising-,
in a large measure and under many conditions, is primarily business insurance—the making of suitable
provision for the future.
In few, if any, lines of industry are the manufacturers today in a position to keep in sight of the demand
for their products and yet advertising has never before been so general or elaborate. Far-seeing manu-
facturers are not taking all their profits and putting them aside. They are sinking a fair proportion of those
profits into business building for the future, protecting themselves against the time when production will have
caught up with the demand and they must again go into the market and sell.
The character of advertising in the leading national magazines, and for that matter in the music trade
papers, affords an excellent indication of the position in which the particular manufacturer stands in the matter
of taking care of more business. We find the greater proportion of advertisers neglecting completely the ques-
tion of selling. In fact, many advertisers are frank to explain in their advertising that they are oversold
at present but expect to be free to take on new r business in the future, and want the readers to see to it that they
are prepared to give that new business.
Manufacturers of musical instruments, particularly piano and talking machine manufacturers, have clung
strongly to this policy of business insurance. They have taken some of the profits of today to build up profits
for to-morrow. They are keeping trade and public interest aroused, so that when they are in a position to go
after more business on a big scale they can confine their efforts to landing the business that awaits them
instead of being compelled to stop and spend money, badly needed perhaps at that time, to reintroduce and
readvertise their products to the wholesale and retail market.
There is nothing that is forgotten more quickly than advertising. A company using big space in all of the
leading newspapers of the country can stop for just one year and find itself entirely forgotten by the public.
This is not theory but proven fact. Some years ago, for instance, a concern manufactured a special soap powder
which had been advertised extensively for years. In view of the fact that the business was to be closed out the
company discontinued advertising almost entirely, and when the sale was finally made to a competing house the
value of the property had depreciated nearly seventy-five per cent., largely because the good will of the company
was woi th just that much less. After the advertising had been stopped for a period dealers ceased handling the
line. When there was a choice between tw T o products they naturally selected the one that was kept before the
public through advertising and clung to that line in preference to the non-advertised product.
In our own piano trade, where advertisers have stopped using publicity the result has been that in a few
months, or at most a year, it was nothing unusual to have some member of the trade inquire what had happened
to the concern and whether it was still in business. Receiving an affirmative answer he would more than
likely remark, "I haven't seen the advertising of this house and naturally thought it had decided to quit business."
It must be remembered that a trade name is worth little if simply used on a particular product. The
value of the name lies in its being advertised and exploited to such an extent that it is constantly in the minds
of those who are expected to buy or sell that particular product. It is only by advertising persistently that
name value can be kept alive. Make a list of the best known trade names in any industry and you will find every
one of them representing a well-advertised product.
Advertising itself is not simply a matter of business building—it constitutes in a large measure business
insurance—the keeping of the market in a receptive mood for future selling—and it is not to be governed by
market conditions. Whether the factory is undersold or oversold advertising is always essential.