Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
MAY
IS, 1920
COLUMBIA CO. SOLVES PROBLEM OF STUFFY BOOTHS
Announces a New Product, Known as the Columbia Idico Deodorant, Which Is Intended to Be
Used in Demonstration Booths to Overcome Vitiated Atmosphere and Unpleasant Odors
The Dealer Service department has sent out
the following announcement to Columbia dealers
in connection with a new product, Columbia
Idico Deodorant:
"Too much emphasis cannot be placed upon
this essential factor of sales success. On the
theory that the comfortable and fully at ease
customer is a quickly and satisfactorily
pleased one, phonograph dealers can well afford
to exert themselves to the utmost and expend
more than ordinary effort in the matter of mak-
ing the record customer feel 'at home.' The
average record customer entering a shop with
the idea in mind of purchasing a selection of five
records is in a frame of mind receptive to all the
influences that combine recreation with musical
appreciation. Anything that tends to distract
the customer will likewise divert your selling
effort and the force of your demonstration.
"The sound-proof record hearing rooms,
equipped with large, comfortable chairs, mild
subdued light, dignified wall decoration, as prime
requisites of the phonograph shop, have long
been recognized and acknowledged. Dealers
the country over have invested large sums of
money and endless time and trouble to provide
their trade with store appointments that re-
semble the home atmosphere and impress the
customers with the feeling that nothing has been
spared to afford them every available comfort.
The first impression that a customer gets upon
entering your shop is liable to be a positive and
lasting one, that will mark the success or failure
of your selling effort. To prevent negative im-
pressions that might arise as a result of some
irritating element, overlooked by the dealer on
account ef his constant association with it, is
a point of such vital importance as to warrant
the most alert attention of every dealer and
clerk in the industry.
"Sometimes the phonograph section and
record hearing room are too near a noisy win-
dow, with passing elevated trains and racket
from the street disturbing the record listeners.
Sometimes it is another department of the store
where pianos are playing, musical instruments
being tested and a general din of voices around
a bargain counter. But more frequently it is a
question of ventilation.
"This subject of ventilation has been gone
into very thoroughly by the Dealer Service de-
partment of the Columbia Graphophone Co. in
the interest of Grafonola dealers with results
that are intended to remove the cause of much
unpopular annoyance and distraction to the
record trade. It was surprising to find so large
a number of well appointed shops, with all facil-
ities for perfect ventilation at hand, with at-
mospheric conditions that were close and stuffy,
due to over-sight on the part of store employes
who, living in the atmosphere, were not aware
of its changes.
"The customer, entering from the street is
quick to recognize odors to which the store
employes are thoroughly accustomed. While
the odor may not be offensive it can be objec-
tionable. New linoleum, rubber floor mats,
metal and furniture polish, fresh paint—all have
their own peculiar effects upon the olfactory
nerves and act as distracting influences upon
your customer's comfort and attention to
records. The shop and the record hearing room,
however well ventilated, are found 'to bear evi-
dences of a busy, spell and particularly retain
stale tobacco odors, which consciously or sub-
consciously affect the prospect's mind and dis-
tract her attention. To keep the prospect in a
buying mood is not so much of an art if these
little matters are given careful consideration and
particularly the question of ventilation and
odors that may be objectionable. To keep the
customer with you for an hour or two while you
demonstrate your phonograph and records and
make your sales appeal is not very difficult if
that -customer is fairly comfortable and with-
out the feeling that she ought to get out into
the fresh air.
"Accordingly the Dealer Service department
called in manufacturers of disinfectants and
deodorizers and took up the proposition of fur-
nishing Columbia dealers with a safe, practical
means of keeping the atmosphere of their stores
always fresh and pleasant.
"After repeated tests and experiments with
various products submitted, it was decided that
the Idico deodorant was best suited for de-
odorizing purposes and it was immediately pre-
pared and made available for Columbia dealers.
It is a slowly evaporating, crystalized compound
that emits a pleasant but delicate perfume and
accomplishes all that can be desired in the mat-
ter of refreshing the atmosphere, destroying
basic odors, killing germs and vermin such as
moths, without injury to the finest polished sur-
face or textile carpet. The Columbia Idico
Deodorant is sprinkled from a container with
shaker top and evaporates slowly a*nd com-
pletely without waste, mixing or any other
troublesome attention.
"It is estimated that this new product, in the
hands of all Columbia dealers, will be a great
aid to their selling efficiency and the service
they are rendering their customers to the ulti-
mate benefit and "betterment of the trade in
general."
EDISON CARAVAN CONVENTION
Dealers in All Parts of the Country May See
Traveling Conventions—Novel Idea Embodies
Many New and Interesting Features
Edison dealers are highly enthusiastic over the
announcement that the annual dealers' conven-
tion, which for several Summers has taken its
place among the leading events in New York
City, will this year be held in a number of the
larger cities of the country, the purpose being
to give every Edison dealer the opportunity to
attend.
New York, Chicago and San Francisco, owing
to their central locations, have been chosen
as stopping points and the Edison Caravan Con-
vention, as it will be called, is expected to pro-
ceed to these cities some time in July. The
program, which is planned to be of a very high
order, will include features that are entirely
new,.not only to Edison dealers, but to the en-
tire phonograph field. Five hours daily for two
days, followed by a day of informal get-together,
will be given to the convention at each stopping
point.
ANNA CASE TO APPEAR IN EUROPE
Noted Edison Artist to Open Concert Work in
England at Queen's Hall, London, May 20
Miss Anna Case, the distinguished American
concert soprano and noted Edison artist, was
among the passengers who sailed on the St.
Paul May 4 for London, where she will give the
first of a number of European concerts.
Her opening concert will take place on May
20, when she will sing at Queen's Hall, London,
with Charles Gilbert Spross, the composer-
pianist, at the piano. Mr. Spross has been asso-
ciated with Miss Case on her American tours.
Having made her operatic debut with the
Metropolitan Opera Company a few years ago
and subsequently having won exceptional suc-
cess on the concert stage, Miss Case is prob-
ably the foremost American soprano to-day.
She has also appeared in a number of Edison
tone-test recitals, the most recent of which was
given at Carnegie Hall, New York, on March 10,
an affair which was treated with singular favor
by the press.
Miss Case is expected to return to the United
States during the latter part of August.
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