Music Trade Review

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REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXXI. No. 2
Published Every Satirday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. J»ly 11, 1925
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Shall Price Be the Appeal in the
Music Store Advertising?
Neill C. Wilson, Advertising Manager of Sherman, Clay & Co., San Francisco, Cal., in an Address Before
the Western Music Trades Association, Deals With the Fundamentals of the Proper Publicity
for the Retail Music Merchant, the Type That Creates Lasting Business
T
HE piano business in the last ten years
has not increased.
This is a plain fact statement. The
population of the country, the wealth of the
country have both increased. But its consump-
tion of pianos has not.
The piano dealer can largely blame himself.
He has been taking out without putting in. He
has been extracting sales as a miner extracts
ore, whereas he should have been harvesting
sales as a farmer harvests crops, with due re-
gard for sowing and fertilizing.
In other
words, he has been taking demand for granted.
There is nothing about a piano which the
public fully recognizes as a necessity. A piano
is a highly artificial instrument for the giving
of certain specialized pleasure. It was invented
by man. It is made by man. Before it can be
sold by man it must be understood by his
neighbors and wanted. It is not like food. It
is not like shelter. It is not an article of such
obvious necessity that the demand for it may
be assumed by any advertiser in advance.
Looking over the advertising of the country,
we can gather that the piano merchant's adver-
tisement too often says: "Here is a piano and
the only reason I offer it to you is because the
price is $295." That appeals to the persons
who that day want a piano and know they want
it. It does not appeal to those who want a
piano but don't know that they want it. It
appeals less to those who don't even know why
anybody should want it.
Missing Most of Them
So the merchant is advertising, when he uses
price alone, to perhaps six people where he
might be advertising to six hundred or sixty
thousand. He is skinning off merely the vol-
unteer crop of customers. And every farmer
knows, if every piano dealer doesn't, that vol-
unteer crops shrink year by year, whereas, with
sound sowing and fertilizing, harvests increase.
But they must be earned if they are to increase.
An advertisement which tells a good, sound
reason why a piano should be purchased for
itself as well as ,for its price—that advertise-
ment not only harvests, but sows. It sows a
seed of desire in the minds of one group of
readers. It cultivates the little growing shoots
and plantlets of desire in the minds of another
group of readers. It sows, cultivates and har-
vests all at once. It makes business for to-day,
for the near future, and for the remote future.
Therefore the advertiser who buys newspaper
space and simply talks price has not, in spite
of his ledger, received maximum return from
that advertisement.
If a man doesn't want a piano at all, the fact
In fact, the further this constructive program
is entered into, the further will your emphasis
swing away from price. For, after all, it is bet-
ter business to sell quality than price. It takes
less advertising to reach a given money volume.
And there is far more likelihood of the sales
"sticking." Moreover, once your business is
identified with quality, the assaults of com-
petitors using "bait" advertising will do the least
damage to it.
Sending Business to Competitors
So far I have not said much about the "bait"
advertiser.
Like the shyster lawyer or the
quack doctor, he is always with us. When
flagrant enough, he can be arrested. He is most
poisonous to us when not quite outside the law.
But it is manifest that if competition tempts
us to parallel his advertisements with advertise-
ments in the least similar to his, even in the
physical presentation of copy or the blackness
and blatancy of price, we narrow the breach
between us. Thus we lead the public to con-
found us with him, we go down with him, and
we take an awful licking before going down
with him. In the long run we will destroy him
surest by most rigidly holding to a clean, whole-
some, attractive advertising policy distinctly our
own.
I quote that hardboiled member of my own
organization, the piano sales manager, when I
say that every "bait" advertisement run by a
competitor in the city of San Francisco sends
Neill C. Wilson
that its price is $295 will not arouse him to business to my firm in a greater degree than it
purchase. Surely it is worth while trying to draws business away.
According to the same practical authority,
at least interest him. And that calls for some-
thing else besides price alone in the advertise- this is because we have built up a reputation
for quality and reliability.
ment.
If I were to try to change our advertising
What is that other ingredient? Desirability.
The constant suggestion, by text and illustra- now, and enter into "bait" competition with the
tion, of the desirability of music in general and rest, destroying our reputation as need be to
of your instrument in particular. Every argu- get the business, the loudest protest would
ment you can lay your hands on. Every ap- come from this same practical sales manager.
proach to his interest. His own craving for It would come from him no less than from the
happiness. His ambition to better his home. owners of the firm.
Will Destroy It
His ambition for his children. His affection
Yet the "bait" advertiser in the long run will
for his wife. Every human argument to bring
home to him and to all his family the desir- surely destroy the piano business. He will de-
ability of music in general. Every technical stroy it because his methods are such as to
and emotional argument to bring home the ad- create suspicion and detract from the dignity
vantages of your instrument in particular. And and sincerity of all piano merchandising. He
price not the only, but simply one (and per- is not sowing and cultivating. He is not even
haps ultimately, the smallest one) of the argu- reaping a volunteer crop. He is going through
(Continued on page 4)
ments involved.