Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1924 Vol. 78 N. 26

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
JUNE 28, 1924
THE POINT OF REVIEW
H P H E R E are some retail music merchants who declare that the
* canvassing method of selling may be all very well for the
small city or in the rural sections, but that in the larger communities
it is inefficient, due to the difficulty which the canvassing salesman
experiences in reaching the people he desires to see. It is a question
whether this point of view stands the test of investigation. Take a
city like St. Louis, for instance. It has approximately 750,000
population, yet in the canvassing campaign which is being conducted
there at the present time by the Kieselhorst Piano Co. it is stated
that the canvassing salesmen are succeeding in seeing 95 per cent
of their possible prospects and that without a great deal of trouble.
What is the answer? Is it not hard for the music merchant to find
if he will take the trouble to do it.
VS
K
#
T
HE success of any canvassing campaign depends directly upon
the caliber of the men who conduct it. Time was when the
canvasser was regarded as the lowest stratum of salesmanship and
when, as a result in many cases, those who had failed at everything
else tried their hands at it, probably as a temporary occupation to
tide them over until they succeeded in getting something better.
Too often the word "canvasser" brought up the vision of a seedy-
looking individual, down at the heels and betraying a lack of
familiarity with the administrations of the barber, who more or less
slunk from one door to another with the certainty of failure written
all over his face. Naturally such men failed to get a hearing and
failed to get results. But to charge canvassing with such failure
is to burden it with a load for which it was not at all responsible
and to drop it because such a method brought no results was to lose
the benefit of a means of selling which in the long run is probably
the strongest of all the retail music merchant has at his disposal.
i*
&
£
HE Kieselhorst Piano Co. attributes the success of its present
campaign to the caliber of the men employed to do this work.
As a matter of fact, the success of any campaign of a similar nature
at the present day must be attributed to exactly the same reason.
There is.a vast difference between the present-day canvassing sales-
man and his usual prototype in the past. He regards his work-
to-day as a definite career, as direct salesmanship is, and he lives up
to the ideas that have led him in to it. More merchandise to-day
is being sold by direct salesmanship, which is a much better term
than canvassing, for despite Shakespeare there is much in a name,
than at any previous time in mercantile history, simply because it
has been found to be a profitable and volume-producing method.
Every type of merchandise is sold by this means, even the automobile,
for one of the largest manufacturers of popular-priced cars is
at the present moment entirely recasting his selling and advertising
campaign for the purpose of embodying direct selling, or can-
vassing if you will, in the work.
is
&
%
T is interesting to see the requirements which are demanded by
some of the biggest direct-selling organizations in the country.
One of them, which has been highly successful, endeavors at all
times to hire college men for the work because it finds they are
better in handling people. It finds little difficulty in getting this
type, once it has shown these men what they can do in this direction
and the- compensation they can earn. A man of this type finds
little difficulty in reaching people; even in the largest cities he can
get past the doorman of the exclusive apartment house and reach
the prospect. And a man of this type and with this training usually
obtains a courteous hearing; it is extremely difficult for the prospect
not to act otherwise.
T
I
M?
VI
M
N one of the largest cities of the East a successful canvassing
campaign was conducted some two years ago in a section almost
entirely built up with apartment houses of the better grade, those
with hall service as a matter of fact. A crew of five men worked
this district for a period of four months with results that made
the campaign one of the most profitable the house had ever under-
taken. Rut the work was not done haphazardly. Lists of names
I
from various sources, such as telephone books, etc., were compiled
before the men were sent out, with the result that in practically
every house the salesman had at least one or two names before he
made a call. With this as a basis it was easy to secure other names
which were given to other men to work. No man made more than
two or three calls in an apartment house, so that the hall men
or elevator boys never became familiar with them. Most of the
prospects were seen and the results were good, for, as a matter
of fact, a prospect of this type, once he is reached, rarely refuses to
listen. He has not been overwhelmed with canvassers as is likely
to be the case in a poorer section.
#
«« M*
V
* I HERE is a saying that a salesman cannot be made, but, even
A if that be true, by no matter of means does it indicate that a
salesman cannot be helped in his work by placing at his disposal
all the possible information regarding the goods he is selling. A
Milwaukee retail music merchant, the Kesselman-O'Driscoll Co.,
Ampico representative in that city, recently compiled a sales manual
for that instrument which it furnishes to all its retail men that
should go a long way in aiding them to close their sales. The
manual, which is bound in loose-leaf form, contains names and
photographs of the homes of twenty prominent residents of Mil-
waukee who have purchased Ampicos, as well as a wealth of other
information concerning this instrument that the average salesman
does not have at his disposal. Another example of this work is that
conducted by the Gulbransen Co. for retail Gulbransen salesmen
throughout the country, whose sales manual recently was declared
by Printers' Ink one of the best that had come to that periodical's
notice, this after a long and thorough investigation of the field.
&
&
#
HE growing use of these salesmen's aids brings to mind the
thought that every retail music merchant has at his disposal
a wealth of sales information which usually is not used because
it is not put together in a convenient and easily accessible form.
It is a matter of small time and energy for the merchant or his
sales manager to compile this information so that the salesman can
have it at his disposal and use it with a prospect. A customer
in Milwaukee, for instance, is much more interested in the fact
that a local musician or a family socially prominent in that city has
purchased a certain instrument than he is in the fact that a musician
in New York or a prominent family in Los Angeles has made
such a purchase. The endorsement given by the local buyer carries
the weight. Steinway & Sons have well realized this fact in utilizing
the names of local musicians who have purchased Steinway pianos
in cities where they have direct retail branches. Their Cincinnati
store has found this one of the most profitable ways of creating
new business. Every merchant can do the same thing.
&
% M
F the manufacturer himself furnishes a sales manual use that,
but supplement it with local information. It is the local touch that
tells, for the familiarity of the names creates a degree of confidence
which goes much further than is the case when the name comes
from some city a thousand or so miles distant. A salesman who
knows everything he can know about the goods he is selling is
always the better salesman, for knowledge of his goods is the
fundamental of all good salesmanship.
Hf
MS
#
T N the death of Gustav Herzberg, veteran dealer of Philadelphia,
-*- the trade has lost a type of retailer with whom manufacturers
like to do business, a retailer of the solid, permanent sort, for Mr.
Herzberg had handled one line of pianos, the Kranich & Bach,
for the entire fifty years he had been in the trade, and another line,
the Mehlin, since its introduction to the trade thirty years ago.
Much of his business had been built up through the constant
pushing of these two and other makes of instruments, and that he
was successful and respected in his own community should make
his career an object lesson to the type of retailer who is inclined
to change his piano line with ease and facility.
T
I
T H E RKVIKWKK.
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
JUNE 28, 1924
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
Specific Appeal of Player Publicity
Price Advertising, Analyzed in Its Relation to the Selling Appeal, Injurious to the Eventual Purchase of
a Player-Piano—Its Unsoundness When Applied to This Instrument—Giving a Specific
Impression of What the Instrument Will Bring to Its Owner
VERY one admits, in theory at least, that
the object of advertising is to produce
upon the mind of a reader or spectator an
impression which shall intend that mind towards
a belief in the desirability of the idea or the
thing advertised. Persuasion is the object of ad-
vertising, so we all agree; as to what constitutes
persuasion there is a great deal of opinion, much
of it violently contradictory of the rest. In the
advertising of player-pianos, whatever their
form or system, the question of just what does
constitute persuasion is extremely important
and needs to be carefully examined if the re-
sulting advertising is to be efficient and do its
part in the process of selling.
Price Advertising Analyzed
We all know, of course, that a great deal of
the money spent on advertising pianos and
player-pianos is spent on advertising their price.
Now, price advertising is not anything else but
the advertising that is to say the selling—of
price. When one advertises that a certain
player-piano can be bought for a certain price
and places the figures at the forefront so that
by their size and display they shall catch the
eye of the reader first of all, one is really adver-
tising those figures and not the player-piano at
all. One is saying: "Four hundred dollars are
not very many dollars; you can spare them, or
earn them in due time; they will buy you a
player-piano." If, of course, each person who
read such an advertisement could be depended
upon to come to the reading with a mind al-
ready made up as to the desirability of some
sort of player-piano, then the advertising of the
price would be sound advertising. Witness, for
instance, the advertising of the inferior kinds
of automobile in which the price competition
as between one and another is saved from the
accusation of unsoundness because the readers
are able, within limits, to frame judgments for
themselves.
The Sound Principle
Such advertising appeals nevertheless are
fundamentally unsound when they are related
to an article like the player-piano, which does
not stand before the generality of the people
as something understood by almost everybody.
On the other hand, of course, one must not
bluntly say that no price advertising is ever
to be used; but the point is that the appeal in
player-piano advertising should always be to
something else, to some attribute or property
of this instrument which can be understood by
the reader and which can assist him or her to
frame a judgment as to the relation of the in-
strument's value to the price asked for it. In
other words, the advertising appeal can be
framed, and persistently should be framed, so as
to provide the reader with mental impressions
which will support the price, rather than with
impressions based on price figures. That is
surely a simple principle,- sound and easily
understood. We are not condemning that ad-
vertising which, at appropriate times and for just
reasons, announces and emphasizes bargain
prices; but rather are insisting that the only
foundation for any mention of price is pro-
vided by copy which will build up a clear mental
picture of what is represented by the proposed
outlay.
Advertising appeal, then, should be specific,
and if the best advertising is studied the emer-
gence and persistence of this principle will, one
E
Highest
Quality
thinks, be amply confirmed. The best national
advertising now being done shows the principle
everywhere, and whether it be a player or a
reproducing piano which is the subject of the
appeal, studiously avoided wasting expensive
space upon any general or vague statements.
The mention of price is always incidental and
the tneat of the appeal is always in a statement
of some specific thing which the instrument
will do.
To put it in another way, if we advertise a
reproducing piano by means of a letter which
a nationally known pianist writes stating that
he allows his playing to be interpreted through
this instrument because he believes it to be the
best, we are using the principle rightly; although
not necessarily in the best way because of the
unfortunate and rather widely held belief that
testimonials do not possess any great positive
value. Reproducing piano advertising then does
not commonly consist of testimonials alone, but
endeavors to put before the eye and mind of
the reader some definite fact concerning the
powers possessed by the instrument and its abil-
ity to do certain things of a musical kind.
If, for instance, we say that a certain repro-
ducing piano will give us reproductions of a
certain Chopin nocturne as played by three dif-
ferent pianists and if we have pictures of iden-
tical passages in the corresponding music rolls
showing, by their variform spacings, the peculiar
phrasing of each artist we produce a positive
impression upon the mind of every reader. We
tell, in a word, something of what the instru-
ment will do, and so telling we maintain the
sound and correct principle of specific appeal.
Crude but Correct
The instances given above are crude and
simple, almost too simple, and in one way or
another they have been used many, many times.
Still they are perfectly correct, so far as they
go, and the attentive student, much more the
expert copy writer, will be able to ring many
changes upon them and execute almost count-
less variations upon the theme they present. It
is advertising of this character which is building
up the reproducing piano into public good-will
and is gradually but surely making for it a
permanent place in public affection which other-
wise it would never gain.
The case of the personal player-piano, the
pedal-played instrument, is parallel, though not
identical. Probably it is really harder to say
anything interesting or impressive in this case
than in the other, because it is always less easy
to talk about one's reader doing something than
to impress him with the idea of seeing or hear-
ing something done by some one else. Never-
theless the best advertising of the pedal played
player-piano is specific. In one well-known case
the instrument is fitted with certain special ac-
centing and tempo-controlling devices which
facilitate greatly the work of emphasizing a
melody and of rendering it with something like
artistic delivery. The advertising copy does not
confine itself to descriptions of this, although
it might well do so; and yet a great deal of the
text is devoted to telling the reader in the
simplest possible way what is done, and how the
human player, sitting in front of the instru-
ment with feet on pedals and fingers on buttons,
can produce the effects desired. Moreover, a
great deal of copy is devoted to telling the
reader what actually is to be desired in playing
music by means of the player-piano, which is
very good, too.
The specific appeal is the only appeal which
constructs interest and holds attention. There-
fore, it is the soundest of all appeals and should
be the fundamental one.
St. Louis Demand Shows
Improvement in Spots
Inquiries From the Public Show Slight Improve-
ment and Merchants Generally See Good
Trade During the Fall Months
ST. LOUIS, MO., June 23.—Generally speaking,
the condition of business is unchanged. There
has been some improvement in spots. A wel-
come day of good sales brings forgetfulness
of the days that are not so good. Inquiries are
slightly more animated and everybody expects
good business in the Fall, but in the meantime
it is going to be a fight for sales, with the best
fighters getting the most sales.
Some of the stores have been having a new
experience. The idea seems to have spread that
the piano merchants are buying pianos instead
of selling them. Recently there have been a
number of telephone calls, received at different
stores, from persons who wanted to sell their
pianos and thought a piano store was a good
place to sell them.
Olive street music merchants had their oppor-
tunity last week to protest against the no-park-
ing rule and took full advantage of it. They
attended a public hearing on the question before
the Board of Public Service and told how their
business had been adversely affected by the rule.
Among the piano men who attended were W. P.
Chrisler, Aeolian Co. of Missouri; P. A. Lehman,
Lehman Piano Co.; J. A. Kieselhorst, Kiesel-
horst Piano Co.; J. B. Moran, Wurlitzer Co.;
Robert Conroy, Conroy Piano Co., and Frank
Augustine, P. A. Starck Piano Co. Addresses
were made by Mr. Moran and Mr. Conroy. The
matter was taken under advisement. A decision
will be reached not later than June 27, when the
present temporary rule expires.
Charles Burtzloffe, representing the Kohler
Industries, was here last week and departed for
the South.
Mark L. Duncan, of the Chicago Talking Ma-
chine Co., spent two days here with Manager
Geissler, of the Famous & Barr Co. music de-
partment.
E. J. Jordan, of the American Piano Co.,
after visiting here, left for Kansas City.
Oscar A. Field, formerly of the Field-Lipp-
man Piano Co., is now in the life insurance
business.
Mr. Boutell, of Bush & Lane Piano Co., Chi-
cago, stopped in St. Louis on his return from
a Southern trip.
B. K. Settergren, of the Settergren Piano Co.,
Bluffton, Ind., was here part of last week in
connection with a special display of grands and
parts at the store of the Kieselhorst Piano Co.
New San Francisco Store
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., June 20.—Construction
work on a new building for Lester G. Loupe's
music store will be started soon. The store will
be located on Fillmore street, north of O'Farrell.
Highest
Quality

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