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Boykin Outlines the Piano Promotion
Drive Before Chicago Club -
Director of the National Piano Manufacturers' Association Campaign of Piano Promotion, in Address
Before the Piano Club of Chicago, Tells of the Aims Which Have Guided the Development of
This Plan and the Results Which May Be Expected From It Once It Begins to Function
H E piano-promotion campaign, adopted
by the National Piano Manufacturers'
Association, is now in motion and the first
national advertising will appear in the February
media, Edward C. Boykin, executive secretary,
assured the local trade in outlining the campaign
to the members of the Piano Club of Chicago
at the Monday meeting, December 20.
Before giving; the details of the plan, Mr.
Boykin praised Max J. de Rochemont, chairman
of the committee, who has been chiefly re-
sponsible in suggesting and carrying out the
plan, as well as the other members of the
committee who have worked so hard to put
the movement into execution. He stated that
the piano industry has established a record in
developing and launching the plan, for it has
been put into action more quickly than any-
thing of its kind.
In his address Mr. Boykin said, in part:
"Let me make this clear in your mind as it
is in mine—the only objective that I have is
to increase the sales of pianos in this country.
We may foster any idea we wish, but, from
the standpoint of sales promotion, it isn't worth
its printing ink if it does not eventually result
in sales. Hence, sales are the goal! Whether 1
those sales are brought about through adver-
tising, through publicity, through piano-playing
contests, through group instruction, through
mailing pieces of what not, sales are the goal!
And salesmanship will ever head the procession
of business-getters.
"This sales-promotion plan is not seeking to
create a new market for the piano. The mar-
kets are already there—everywhere. It isn't
seeking to devise new uses for the piano. The
uses' of the piano are as plain and as factful
as the noses on our faces. This plan has no
miracles in view. It isn't a bag of tricks.
Applying our four definitions, it is designed,
first of all, to assist dealers in selling pianos
in a greater number than they are now selling;
to foster a desire for the piano in breasts
where there is to-day no desire; to push the
piano on beyond the line of demarcation that
seems to be drawn across the path of the in-
dustry to-day; and, lastly, it is designed to
forward the industry as a whole to a new
conception of what the piano means to our
American institutions. I think the last thought
is so important. So often in the heat of battle
we lose sight of the really motivating influ-
ences that keep us in action.
"There is a new force operating in American
business to-day. I don't have to tell you
what this force is because most of you know
what it is. An able member of one of our
leading financial institutions calls it the new
competition—and such it is. It is the com-
petition between industries for their fair share
of the American dollar, for which so many
claims are made. It is really an application
of the old fundamental, 'united we stand,
divided we fall.' I don't mean to say that
the industry will necessarily fall unless it unites,
but I do say that it will be in a better position
to stand the brunt of competition for its share
of the greenbacks if the industry goes after that
share with a unified front.
"After all, why shouldn't the piano, as an
industry, make a greater claim for its place
in the sun? It was there long before most of
those intruders came. It is just as fitting for
T
the piano industry to unite on such a program
of sales promotion as it is for any one of the
hundred or more industries that have done, and
are doing the same.
"It seemed to me, in considering what I
should say to you to-day, that it would be well
to answer several of the larger questions that
Edward C. Boykin
have confronted me recently. Of these the
most pertinent is: 'Why doesn't the piano in-
dustry raise more than $200,000?' Gentlemen,
the size of an industry does not bear any fixed
analogy to the amount of money it raises to
begin its co-operative work. In the old days
in football the beefier a man was the better
football player he was supposed to make, but
now the reign of beef on the gridiron has
passed. It is how a man uses the amount of
brawn that »he has and not the amount of
avoirdupois that wins football games.
"And so it is in. industry. It is how you
spend your money, rather than how much
you spend, that gives results. Disagree with
me if you like. It has been my experience
all the same, and here are some figures showing
the initial advertising expenditures of several
associations of industry:
Initial
Greeting Card Association
$30,000
Common Brick Manufacturers
30,000
Indiana
Limestone
Quarrymen's
Association
9,000
Oak Flooring Bureau
65,000
Portland Cement Association
45,000
"Say Tt With Flowers"
28,000
Wall Paper Manufacturers' Asso-
ciation
65,000
American Walnut Lumber Associa-
tion
25,000
Associated Tile Manufacturers
17,000
Copper & Brass Research Associa-
tion
60,000
"Save the Surface"
65,000
American Cranberry Exchange
27,000
* * * " 'What are you going to do with
$200,000?' is the next question, and it brings.-
5
me right to the scratch line of the matter.
"Let me make myself clear again at this
point; that sales promotion is not a formula
that involves the discarding of all the tools that
an industry has found useful in the past. Not
at all. Sales promotion does not mean that
we are going to 'scrap' anything. What it
really means is that we are going to make our
tools a little sharper; look around for any old
tools that we might use in a new way or any
tools in our kit that have not as yet been tried.
"Apropos of this thought someone asked me,
'Are you going to find a new way oi selling
the piano?' I told him that I didn't think so.
After all, gentlemen, as I see it, there is no
new way of selling the piano. There may be
a new way of creating or confirming a tlesire
to own a piano, but there really is no new
way to sell one, because a home without a
piano will always be a prospect, and as long
as mother's flourish and children are born and
homes are made, the piano will still stand as
one of the things most to be desired.
"But what are we going to do with the
$200,000? First, we are going to advertise.
We are going to advertise the , ; fw3>n,o in
magazines that have a national cffcuTation,
And, bear in mind, this plan can anly operate
in a national way. It cannot, #s >i sei it, be
confined to any particular community, nor can
it favor one above the other. Hence adver-
tising of a national rather than a local character.
I don't claim that by advertising the piano
you will create any riot of overnight sales.
They don't come that way. What advertising
will do is this: It will at least bring forcibly
to the attention of a great many people the*
piano. It will provide a background against
which you can advertise and your dealers can.*
advertise. It will sell the piano impartially.,
and unselfishly. There is too little advertising'
of the piano to-day as such. Every man who',
advertises has an ax to grind in the way of
a name, either his own or somebody else's.;;
It seems to me that the piano needs just ex-
actly what it is going to get—advertising thai'.;-"
advertises the piano and not a name. This,
advertising will be continuous throughout the
year. We will render dealers and local papers-
a service embodying this advertising, so that
dealers locally in their own communities may
align themselves with it if they desire to. * * *-.''
"We are going to foster group piano instruc- ;
tion. I am frank to say, gentlemen, that this*
is such a big subject that I doubt very much
whether many of us realize actually how big
it is. It is a tremendous force that if loosed
in behalf of the piano industry and if fostered
in the proper way will be a whole sales-promo 7 "'
tion plan in itself.
"It seems to me that if the piano industry '
has been deficient in one thing in its previous ^
efforts to broaden its markets it has been d«
linquent in putting too little stress on l e a r n i n g
to play the piano. Think about that for a'
moment! I have looked through hundreds ofc?
advertisements purposely to find some in whichc
mothers were urged to have their children?
learn to play the piano. Obviously you stand*
a better chance of selling a piano to someonf 1 .
who can play or wishes to learn to play than f,
otherwise. As I see it, the industry has to i
take upon itself the burden of teaching more