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Who Suys
Piano
M
INST
out o f 10 T
It's the F
By B. BRITTAIJN
JK.) buys the musical instrunicnis
that go into the home? Is it Father
with the bankroll, Mother with the
home instinct, or the younger mem-
bers of the family with their up-to-the-minute
tastes and their modern ideas? This question
is an important one because selling time is val-
uable and even a few moments spent in solicit-
ing a member of the family who has not a de-
ciding vote, in the purchase of an instrument
means time wasted. No music merchant or a
salesman can expect to be 100 per cent perfect
in determining the member or members of the
family who are going to see that the name goes
on the dotted line of the contract, but he can
be guided to a certain extent by experience
which shows that in some cases the feminine
head of the house is the dominating personality,
in some few cases the man, but in a great per-
centage of the sales at least two or more mem-
bers of the family.
The average music merchant interviewed is
inclined to make snap judgment regarding who
has the buying influence in the family. We
have had .some tell us that 90 per cent of
pianos, for instance, arc sold to the women
and therefore the woman is the logical pros-
pect to follow-up, and that the 10 per cent sold
to men are, as a matter of fact, bought by the
man to satisfy family demands. The merchant,
however, whether he sells musical instrument
or anything else, must depend for his inlorma-
tion upon the individual who actually signs the
order, although the fact that another may be
present and help in the decision, acts as a guide.
in certain cases. He cannot, however, go into
the home and find out what goes on behind
the scenes, the arguments that take place be-
fore the member of the family is authorized to
make a purchase, and the preferences and prej
vidices voiced by both young and old before an
agreement is reached as to the particular prod-
uct to be bought.
However, there have been organizations
working on this particular question for some
time past, for it has been found that in prac-
tically every product used in the home the
W
goodwill of tun or more members < the family
must be enlisted to assure a final decision to
buy. Several of these
s u r v e y s, and they
have been broad and
sweeping, have been
made for or in co-
operation with The
Crowell
Publishing
Co., publishers o f
The American Maga-
zine and other pe-
riodicals, who have
used the information
thus gained in em-
phasizing the value
of their magazine as
an advertising med-
ium appealing to all
m e m b e r s of the
family of practically-
all ages. This publishing house has
endeavored to show that in advertis-
ing products going into the home the
appropriation should not be confined
to media appealing only to one mem-
ber of the family, such as the man, the woman,
or the children, but should be placed so that it
can be read practically simultaneously by all
members of the family.
This is not set forth.as a brief for the pub-
lishers mentioned, but simply to indicate that
it has proven wise to advertise to all members
of the family and it is just as wise to direct
the sales appeal to all members.
One of the surveys made in co-operation with
The Crowell Publishing Co. was that for the
National Piano Manufacturers Association, in
the course of which 2,960 families in four im-
portant cities of the United States, namely,
Troy, N. Y., St. Joseph, Mo., Johnstown, Pa.,
and Elkhart, 1ml., were questioned not only
regarding their interest in the piano, the num-
ber of children in the family, etc., but particu-
larly as to whether or not two or more mem-
bers of the family had influenced the purchase
of the instrument. The returns show that 80.5
per cent of those questioned credited the final
decision on the piano to two or more members
of the family. This, in the first place, elimi-
nates the old theory that one member of the
family, the mother, for instance, does 90 per
cent ol the piano buying. Sin- or her husband,
or both, for that matter, sign the contract but
other members of the family have practically
always had a part in the decision.
If there is any moral to this, it is that
the music merchant in his advertising, both
newspaper and direct
mail and in his per-
s o n a 1 solicitations,
should endeavor to
so arrange his sales
talks so that there
will be something in
them to appeal to
both sexes and all
ages. We find a great
concentration in cer-
tain sections on the
training of the child
in piano playing. It is
a worthwhile a n d
productive appeal, but
something else must
be said to interest
the childless couple,
or those f a m i l i e s
where the children have reached their majori-
ties and do not care to be addressed as young-
sters any longer. It does not mean an entire
revision of piano advertising, but it docs mean
that if a certain piece of copy is designed to
appeal to one particular member of the family,
other advertising that follows should be de-
signed to other family members. If the copy
can be made to interest all hands at once then
it would seem that that much more time and
labor is saved.
Phonograph
The cities already mentioned, namely, Troy,
X. Y., St. Joseph, Mo., Johnstown, Pa., and
Klkhart, I ml., returned figures showing that
devoted particularly to that instrument, were
bought as the result of an agreement of two
or more members of the family. But in co-
operation with The Victor Talking Machine Co.
and other interests, The Crowell Publishing Co.
is also able to present the results of another
survey on musical merchandise along similar
lines made in Holyoke, Mass., Steubenville, O.,
Oklahoma City, Okla, and Fort Worth, Tex.
This survey was broader in the sense in that
it presented the question as to whether two or