Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
advertising, although some of the piano houses have expended large
sums of money for this particular form of publicity.
Perhaps one of the largest campaigns of billboard advertising
in the piano trade was carried on by Lyon & Healy during the
Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
They had all the billboards in the World's Fair city covered
with illuminated signs exploiting the Fischer piano.
Whether the Lyon & Healy directors figured that the results
were commensurate with the expenses of maintaining this form of
advertising we do not know, but we believe that more effective
advertising can be carried on through billboard publicity with other
products than pianos.
Two of the leading talking machine manufacturers have used
the electrical sign space in New York on the principal thorough-
fares here.
This form is most expensive, but we believe that talking ma-
chines fit in better in this kind of advertising than pianos and we
believe the cheaper products still better than talking machines.
members held to the belief that the association should go on record—
they were willing to fight it out.
We can throw to the wind parliamentary rules and regulations
and simply fall back upon the moral sense—the moral force as ex-
pressed by the roll call at the Convention at Richmond.
'URTHERMORE, in our opinion, the results gained through
outdoor advertising in order to be effective must be consecu-
tive.
In other words, that it does not pay an advertiser to exploit
his product on billboards unless he does it in such a manner as to
attract attention and when he has at once succeeded in attracting
attention he must keep up the pace.
This form of advertising is a business proposition and must be
performed in a businesslike manner and placed before the public-
in such a way as to attract.
It does not pay to tell a long story on a billboard.
People do not stop to read a lot of descriptive matter.
The message must be brief and the display attractive to ac-
complish its purpose.
We never have observed that crowds of people halted on prin-
cipal thoroughfares to gaze at sign boards.
Therefore, a mass of reading is useless for the public will not
pause to read.
To reach the masses in an effective way the message and pic-
ture must be available on the instant.
The passerby only gazes at the wall for one brief moment, and
if there is a catch phrase seen or a single word, then it is photo-
graphed upon the mind, so we should say that brevity in billboard
advertising should be the one fundamental which advertisers should
consider.
But we should not recommend it at all unless the advertiser had
a large appropriation upon which to draw.
There are other ways in which we believe a limited advertising
expenditure can be made to accomplish much better results than
billboard advertising or even street car advertising.
AN EXERCISE IN MNEMONICS.—"What did I do with that memo-
randum?" said a distinguished looking man, speaking half to himself, but
with his eyes on the clerk, who stood waiting for his order in a large city
grocery.
He began searching his pockets. Prom each of them came scraps of
paper, big and little.
He examined the scraps one after another and
restored each bunch to its separate pocket. The clerk waited, and a cus-
tomer farther along the counter eyed the display with curiosity.
"Gone," said the gentleman, with an air of finality. "I'll have to
trust to memory." The clerk nodded.
"Six eggs?" he said, with an interrogative inflection. '.
-.
"Right," said the gentleman.
The clerk wrote it down. "A pound of butter?" he continued.
"A pound of butter," agreed the gentleman.
]
. ; .j
"Dread?"
j
"Three loaves."
J
i
"Coffee?"
-
jg
'
The gentleman hesitated. "No," he said, with decision.** "Coffee
enough on hand to last the rest of the week." He smiled contentedly,
watched the clerk write a name and address at the top of the order, and
then went out of the shop whistling. "How did you know what he
wanted?" asked the other customer of the clerk.
"He lives just around the corner in an apartment, and he and his
wife get their own breakfasts. Always the same things—never any
change—but he always has to have it written down."
"Do you know who he is?"
'
"His name is Bertini, I think. He's a kind of professor. I believe
he has a kind of memory system he teaches to people who can't remem-
ber things."
The other customer smiled, but the clerk had no sense of humor.
F
TATEMENTS have reached this office that some gentlemen
who have been largely interested in the coupon scheme of
selling pianos have stated that no resolutions were passed at Rich-
mond discountenancing this form of piano exploitation.
Is not that really a narrow attitude for any business man to
take ?
Let us admit for the sake of argument that technically accord-
ing to strict parliamentary rules there was an error in 'recording the
vote.
What does that amount to?
The members knew that for which they were voting and the
record shows that there was a three to one vote cast against the
coupon system of advertising.
That shows the sentiment of the organization and so far as the
technicality goes—stuff and nonsense !
;
Technicality—we may as well talk about legality, for there is
no legal way of imposing these rules and regulations upon associa-
tion members, but the moral sentiment was clearly shown and
higher than any legal measure is the moral law of the country, for
the moral law creates defined legal enactments—it creates statutory
law and without the moral force behind a- law it becomes useless.
Now, that is the whole thing at Richmond.
The sentiment was clearly shown opposed to the coupon scheme
system of piano vending.
'.'• Attempts were made to postpone action—to adjourn—but the
S
T
H E R E are changes constantly going on in the player industry
and we have information which we are at the present time
not able to impart that there are other player innovations which ere
long will be placed on the market which will stimulate further in-
terest.
Now, there is no denying the fact that interest in the music
trade is centered somewhat, to a large degree, upon player develop-
ment, and when dealers have an opportunity of investigating and
comparing forms of player mechanism naturally they will be in-
terested.
IN LIGHTER VEIN
A wealthy American's aunt had died in Australia and, wishing to
have her buried in the family lot in her native town, he cabled for the
remains to be sent to America. When the coffin arrived he was amazed to
discover a soldier in the full uniform of a general. He cabled his aston-
ishment at the error and received this concise explanation: "Keep the
general. Your aunt has been accidently buried with full military honors."
AN OFFICIAL ENGAGEMENT.—One of Washington's gilded young
men came rapidly down the steps of his house half an hour after noon
"What's the rush?" asked a friend. .
"Oh, I've got to hurry down to the office or I won't get there in time
to go out for lunch."—Saturday Evening Post.
In the Hereafter the man encountered a single group of animals—
two 01 three beavers, an otter and some seals, all shivering, though the
climate, to say the least of it, was mild. "We were skinned for your
wife's furs!" they explained civilly, upon observing his perplexity. He
started and broke into a loud laugh. "So was I!" quoth he, and joined
them; and thenceforth they wandered on together.—Puck.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS.—A wag who does his bit of "globe trot-
ting" tells of two odd entries that he saw in the visitors' book of a fash-
ionable resort on the Rhine. A few years ago one of the Paris members
of the Rothschild family had registered as follows: "R. tie Paris." It so
chanced that the next visitor to inscribe his name in the book was Baron
Oppenheim, the banker of Cologne, and he wrote his name beneath Roths-
child's in this wise: "O. de Cologne."
SHAKESPEARE ON ASPARAGUS.—Mr. Barry Pain is noted for his
powers of smart repartee. Some time ago he attended a dinner party
where his host had got a Shakespearean quotation for every item on the
menu except the asparagus.
Mr. Pain was appealed to for some appropriate lines and, quick as
thought, he gave the following:
"Off with his head!
!
"So much for sucking 'em!"
t