Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
OCTOBER 3,
1925
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
"Bait Advertising" and Its Evils in
Retail Piano Merchandising
The Work Which the (Better Business Bureaus Are Doping to Check This Pernicious Practice in the Retail
Piano Trade—Three Rules of Good and Proper Advertising—Extracts From an Address
Before the Illinois Association by Roscoe Herget of Peoria, 111.
T H I N K that we can all agree that there two days waiting, the piano did not show up,
are two important arms to the piano in- whereupon the customer called the music shop
dustry in America to-day, namely, produc- and was informed it was broken. Then the
tion and marketing. That is all there is and medium carrying the copy was appealed to by
approximately 95 per cent of all the mar- the wronged customer. He went to the news-
keting is done through advertising. When that paper, as he had a right to do, and told the Ad-
is realized you can begin to get some concep- vertising Manager, who called the music shop
tion of the tremendous power of the business and through that source the piano was finally
delivered after the credit references of the cus-
force advertising represents.
That power and force, that business power, is tomer were questioned and he was advised that
big enough to do that thing which no other they were not sufficient. The investigation of
branch of industry has ever done, to clean its the references showed that they were thor-
oughly sufficient and that the customer was
own house for the sake of its own house.
As a consequence, Better Business Bureaus entitled to the credit as advertised. However,
were formed to determine why advertising the customer paid cash in this particular in-
throughout the country was not pulling and stance in order to show his good faith.
An amusing incident happened recently.
why tremendous amounts of money expended
were not bringing the proper returns, and after There appeared a cut-price advertisement in one
numerous conferences by experts it was con- of the newspapers, "Piano for a Song." Shortly
cluded that industry must clean its own house, afterward a very young and innocent young
and agencies known as Better Business Bureaus lady came and sang a sweet ditty to the adver-
were organized and sponsored by the Asso- tising manager. She expected to get a piano.
ciated Advertising Clubs of the World to pro- Little do we know how her faith was shattered
tect advertising and the public from the frauds in advertising when she saw that misappro-
priated phrase. So it behooves one, not only
and impositions following therefrom.
It has recently developed that one of the when they are telling the truth to formulate it
forms of advertising receiving the most atten- in such words that the most common will under-
tion from Bureaus is "Bait Advertising." This stand.
Misuse of Window Cards
has been brought about through the efforts of
The misuse of window cards is the most com-
organizations representing clean advertising by
making corrections of the printed copy so that mon form of "Bait Advertising." By their use
newspapers and periodicals will not accept dif- the advertising manager of the newspaper can
ferent forms of advertising that savor of dis- not be appealed to for correction. The card
honesty. The crooked dealer and gyp mer- may state "This fine piano for $149." It may
chants, realizing that that fruitful avenue of be on a Chickering grand piano, and back of
business, even though founded upon dishonesty, that card the truthful statement may be, but
was cut off and throttled, began to look for other try and get it.
Irickery to take its place and determined upon
The innocent customer, and many piano buy-
the use of "bait" to lure and induce customers ers are such, will then be met by a smooth-
in their places of business and once getting tongue salesman wearing a flashy tie and a
them across the threshold of deceit into their "race-track" suit and ornamented with cos-
store of iniquitous representations, they pro- metics, who will have many apparently logical
ceeded to use all the arts and mysteries within reasons why the piano could not be sold at that
their power to prevent the sale of that which price. He will tell that that is the only one
they maliciously advertised.
and it would be months before it could be de-
Isaac Gimbel a few weeks ago said, "Anyone livered, or that the sounding board is broken
who wants to be 40 years behind the times can and, of course, the customer would not want to
keep right on practicing all the old tricks of buy a piano of that kind or that it was in a fire
misrepresentation, baiting and inaccuracy, de- and the water had warped the frame, or that
liberate or otherwise, that modern establish- they had just previously sold it to another party
ments have cast aside." It will thus be seen for cash and had failed to remove the sign, or
that the opinion of one successful merchant at- that the customer was too skilled and too artis-
tributes a portion of his success to Truth in tic to play on such a cheap piano, or "We have
Advertising and the elimination of all bait copy. one in the back for $949 which could be sold on
However, the public is composed of many fish the same terms which would be more to your
and "suckers" and sometimes a smart customer liking and keeping of your temperament."
will reverse the attraction and compel the mer- Many suave reasons will be advanced why you
should swallow the bait and fall prey to the
chant to swallow his own bait.
ingenuity of the dealer.
Some Recent Examples
Growing from the Peddler's Days
Recently one of our Bureaus was called in to
There was a time when advertising was un-
adjust a cause wherein a music dealer adver-
tised a genuine player-piano with free floor known to sell goods and wares. That was when
lamp, silk shade, bench, music cabinet and the trader went through the country in a canoe
library of latest music rolls for $129, with a and on horseback carrying his wares with him
deposit of $5 down and terms as low as $2 per and demonstrating them over the counter so
week. The customer being attracted by the that the customer could see exactly what he was
advertisement called at the store and offered buying. That is now impracticable and adver-
the $5 as a down payment. The smooth-tongue tising has taken its place in industry in order
crook advised that the piano could not be sold to get over the message and merits of the goods
for such a small down payment. Finally, after to be sold. Take advertising from the business
some controversy they agreed to take the $5 of any one of you and your doors would be
and further advised that it would be necessary to closed from lack of business within a few
have another $5 when the piano was actually months.
The history of successful business has been
delivered. The customer was smart enough to
take the name and number of the piano. After the history of truthful advertising. "A cus-
1
tomer is never wrong," is the fixed policy of
John Wanamaker. At first that was an ex-
pensive experiment. Now it is his good will
and asset from which no man can relieve him.
However, by his own act over night, he could
lose what has taken generations to accumulate
if he once sought to deceive and defraud the
buying public.
So it behooves you gentlemen assembled here
to-day to look well to your good will and con-
fidence that the one thing that is making good
business is clean business methods and the
elimination of untruthful and deceptive adver-
tising. Above all remember that frequently a
"sucker" snapping at your bait has friends and
reactions that work both day and night against
you and at the end of the inventory period you
begin to check up and find that step by step a
little business is getting away from you and
you begin to wonder where it is. If you are
wise you will review the sales methods of your
men and your own advertising and see if it is
such that a child could follow and come into
your store and be treated with the same confi-
dence and consideration that your smartest cus-
tomer and shrewdest buyers receive. When
that is done, business will carry on at a lesser
operating expense to a greater benefit to the
public and Better Business Bureaus will be de-
voting their attention to other more construc-
tive lines for the benefit of the great American
people.
Three Rules of Advertising
In conclusion I want to leave three points
with you. I never miss an opportunity to state
them and I want to pass them to you and 1
want you to carry these three thoughts in your
mind if you forget everything else about the
movement. I want you to make them your
Advertising Creed.
1. The public has a right to believe the ad-
vertising which it reads. The newspaper re-
porter may draw upon his imagination to make
a news item more interesting and he does com-
paratively little harm, but I say to you to-day
that the man who tells what is not so about the
goods his boss sells and concerning which he
is in a position to learn everything lies and
lies to make money.
2. The advertiser has a right to have his
advertising believed. What one of you men, if
you bought a home in a restricted residential
neighborhood and some fellow bought a parcel
of land near you for some undesirable purpose,
could not yell your heads off at the depreciation
in the value of your property. Then why, why
in the name of common sense, do you men who
have all of your eggs in one basket, the very
sustenance of your family depending upon the
drawing power of your advertising copy and
sales methods, why, I ask you, do you permit
as periodical members, some low, vile, loath-
some, indecent piece of medical copy, some
lying piece of financial copy or any other kind
of untruthful advertising that casts a shadow
on every word you say about your own legiti-
mate business.
Last, but not least, as a man with some adver-
tising experience, I want to say to you that the
periodical that will knowingly accept, print and
foist upon its greatest asset, its reader confi-
dence, any piece of copy which is false or frau-
dulent is guilty of nothing more and nothing
less than being an accessory to the crime of
obtaining money by a false pretens**