Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
RE™
EDWARD LYMAN DILL.
Editor and Proprietor.
J. B. SPILLANE, M*n**in* Editor.
EXECVTIVE STAFF:
Titos. CAHPBELL-COPELAND,
W. MURDOCH LIND,
ERNEST L. WAITT, 255 Washington St.
R. W. KAUFFMAN.
GEO. W. QUERIPEL.
CHICAGO OFFICB:
BOSTON OFFICE:
PHILADELPHIA OFFICE:
EMILIE FRANCES BAUER,
GEO. B. KELLER,
A. J. NICKLIN,
E. P. VAN HARLINGEN, 36 La Salle St.
MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL:
R. J. LEFEBVRE.
5T. LOUIS OFFICE :
CKAS. N. VAN BUREN.
Of what benefit is it to sell a number of pianos on small time
payments to people who are unable to meet their instalments ? It is
better far to have the instruments on the floor. Quality business is
all right, but it takes a little hustle to get it, and that's what men are
in business for. It is to hustle.
OL. DANIEL F. TREACY is one of the successful business
men who is broad minded enough to give credit where it right-
fully belongs, to influences which have been instrumental in assisting
the business enterprises with which he is connected. He believes in
advertising, believes strongly in the accumulative benefits accruing
from trade newspaper advertising.
Colonel Treacy has always been a firm believer in legitimate
newspaper work. Advertising is the great motive power, and few
people have any idea of that power at the present day, and fewer still
are acquainted with the modern tendencies that guide the expenditure
of this power.
C
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE: ALFRED METZGER, 425-427 Front St.
Published Every Saturday at 1 Madison Avenue, New York.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
SUBSCRIPTION (including postal >, United States. Mexico and Canada, $2.00 per
year; all other countries, $4.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per insertion. On quarterly or
yearly contracts a special discount is allowed. Advertising Pages, $50.00; opposite read-
ing matter, $75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman Bill.
THE ARTISTS'
DEPARTMENT
On the first Saturday of each month The Review contains in its
"Artists' Department" all the current musical news. This is effected
without in any way trespassing on the size or service of the trade
section of the paper. It has a special circulation, and therefore aug-
ments materially the value of The Review to advertisers.
MANUFACTURERS
The directory of piano manufacturing firms and corporations
found on page 33 will be of great value as a reference for
dealers and others.
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE-NUMBER 1745 GRAMERCY.
NEW YORK, JUNE 25, 19O4.
EDITORIAL
W
E are too apt as a people to go to extremes and when pessi-
mism is as rife as it is at the present time it is just as well
to indulge in a little retrospective view, and see if the over optimistic
feeling of two years ago was warranted, or if there is any real cause
for a general pessimistic feeling.
At that time railroad stocks were very high, and speculation
was higher. From the optimistic viewpoint we were the greatest
country in the world, so gigantic, that it was doubtful whether there
were good things enough to go round. The promoter was manu-
facturing securities'at such a rate that the bank note companies were
working overtime, and industries were turned out at the rate of five
billion a year.
T
HE limit was reached, and the people began to realize, sadly in
some cases, how the rapid pace had caused them to lose their
heads and incidentally their coin. Then began the house-cleaning,
and debt paying campaign has been going on ever since. It was the
oft repeated story of speculation, of going to the extreme. There
was nothing new to those who had undergone experiences in
other booms, but there was something new in it to the speculators and
financiers who think they know it all. They have learned their
lesson, and now their conservatism goes to the other extreme.
I
N our opinion this pessimism is as unreasonable as was the course
of the men who took the opposite view of the situation some two
years ago. The middle of the road plan is always a safe one, and
the best posted concerns affirm that there will be a higher range of
values for all sorts of good dividend paying stocks within the near
future, for notwithstanding all the losses through unwise buying of
worthless securities there never has been a time when so much idle
money was waiting for reinvestment, and when time money could be
borrowed at such low rates of interest as at the present time.
OW there is no use of being over pessimistic when regarding the
business situation. There is nothing to alarm one in the
slightest, but it will require harder work to do a profitable business
than it did last year, or the year before, and it also is well to exercise
a fair amount of conservatism in the selling of instruments. Quality
sales should be kept well to the forefront rather than quantity sales.
N
A CONSERVATIVE and well qualified estimate piaces the total
f\
annual outlay for advertising in the United States alone at
five hundred millions, and of this enormous sum no less than seyenty-
five per cent, is taken for space in newspapers, magazines and trade
papers.
In this country we spend as much on advertising as Russia,
Germany, France, Austria and Spain spend on their armies every
year. This is truly a vast amount, but it is not out of proportion to
the value of businesss done, being little less than five per cent, of the
total annual sales of the United States.
WENTY of our large department stores in New York spend a
total of two millions annually for advertising, or four per
cent, of the total sales. There are instances where concerns have in-
vested two-thirds of their capital in advertising, and found that the
investment paid well.
The factor of waste is considerable, and it is pretty difficult to
at all times tell just what mediums pay. Every one must use to a
certain extent discretion in making their advertising appropriation?,
but it is conceded by all advertisers that trade newspapers of admitted
circulation and influence are the best mediums through which to reach
a particular class of readers.
T
HE Review booth in the music trade section at the World's Fair
is daily attracting many callers, who evince the warmest in-
terest in our exhibit and in the publicity which we are giving to music
trade interests.
The Review is carrying on work at St. Louis which is in many
respects the most ambitious ever undertaken by any trade publication,
in this or any other industry. The educational force of our work and
its effect upon the industry is conceded to be far-reaching by those
who have investigated our plans.
T
J
UDGING from the various ad-smiths and advertising agencies
which are appearing in all parts of the country, the writing of
advertisements is becoming more and more a really scientific pro-
fession.
One of the necessities in good ad-writing is truthfulness. There
should be a good literary style, it is true, but the ad must be of a con-
vincing character, and the writer must have imagination as well.
Not the kind that distorts facts, but the kind of imagination that
makes common every day facts interesting.
HILE the ordinary piano retail advertisements have improved
materially during the past few years, there is still ample
ground for further advance. Advertising of the most attractive and
truthful character pays the best.
The other day a very intelligent writer of advertisements wanted
to impress upon the people's minds the fact that they often paid too
much for a hat, because of the name that's in it. He quoted effect-
ively an old Heidelberg professor, whose opinion of himself was so
high that he lifted his hat reverently whenever his own name was men-
tioned. The writer of this advertisement wanted him to draw con-
clusions favorable to his own hats and unfavorably to those who
charged for a name.
W
HIS is the sort of advertising that lingers in the memory, and
makes one record of advertising better than another.
1
It is evident that as years go by there will be a constantly increas-
ing amount of advertising spread before the public. A good deal
of good can be done if the writers and promoters of advertising take.
T