Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
The Most Valuable Space in the Store.
There are Plenty of Merchants Everywhere Who Permit the Choicest Space in Their Stores to Go to
Waste—They Do Not Fully Appreciate the Value of a Good Window Display—Special Depart-
ments Organized By Manufacturers Which Have Educated Retailers to the Point of Getting Better
Results From Their Window Display Than Ever Before—Some National Dealers Like The
Victor Talking Machine Co. Who Have Lead the Way—How Some Dealers Dress Up Their
Windows —The Piano Merchants Have Much to Learn Along the Lines of Window Show—It Is
True That There Are Not the Opportunities for Variety Which May Be Found in Other Trades
But Still Some Attractive Displays Can Be Made If Intelligent Effort Is Placed Upon the Develop-
ment of Window Show—Special Decorative Scheme Which Will Attract the Passers-by Can Be
Easily Arranged By the Piano Merchant, Thus Making the Window a Powerful Trade Promoter.
T
H E value of a good window display is not fully appreciated by
a large majority of piano merchants of this country.
If we started on the East Coast and traveled to the Pacific visit-
ing various sizeable towns we should find that perhaps in each large
town there would be at least one piano man who appreciates the
value of window display, but the great majority have not as yet
given this subject the attention which it deserves, and consequently
are wasting a vast amount of valuable window space—the best space
in their stores.
It would cost them nothing to get the advertising which would
come to them from a good window display, but they do not appre-
ciate just what this means.
Charles W. Hurd, writing in Printers' Ink along these lines,
says : "A few manufacturers—probably not more than six or seven in
the whole country—have discovered a veritable gold mine in work-
ing up ivindow displays for their dealers.
"They struck a lead in the perception that real selling thought
can be put into window-copy, as well as into copy for the newspapers
or magazines. It also dawned on them that variety is the spice of
window display, and then followed the conclusion that depending
on occasional and one-idea cut-outs and window trims to do the
work alone and unaided is equivalent to sending a boy on a man's
errand, and throwing away golden opportunity.
"Each of these manufacturers has therefore organized a perma-
nent window display department to work all the time and provide
a fresh and continuous stream of ideas and suggestions to the dealer
for making his windows pay, making them pay both dealer and
manufacturer, and pay right up to the maximum.
"These departments are now regarded as indispensable, and it
is beginning to be realized that this matter of window display, one
of the most direct forms of advertising, is susceptible of great and
almost limitless expansion. And there is good prospect that the
pioneers will be able to enjoy the full fruits of their discovery for a
long time to come, because there is room enough for many more.
and it is still free soil.
"The first demonstration was made by the Victor Talking Ma
chine Co., which started such a department two or three years ago
and put in a high-salaried expert in charge. Then followed the
Edison Phonograph Co., the Wire Goods Co. of Massachusetts,
Swift & Co., the Chicago packers, and Grosset & Dunlap, of New
York, with possibly others not reported.
"Other national advertisers are only waiting, no doubt, to be
convinced that the principle can be applied to their own lines of
business, and there is little doubt that it can.
"Take, for instance, Grosset & Dunlap, the largest house in its
field, which is the publishing of reprints of popular fiction at popular
prices.
' " " ' " " •
"There is no close comparison between the marketing of
books and the merchandising of talking machines; they are done in
different ways; but they both fall under the same laws when they
are being done through window display, just as all lines come to-
gether in the democracy of the newspaper or magazine pages.
"The typical dealer window at present may be this: A pile
of books, a row of titles, a flare of bright-colored paper covers—
attention-getting and interesting, no doubt, but hardly compelling.
"But introduce at vacation time, as the dealers did at Grosset &
Dunlap's suggestion, a suit-case, tennis racket, pipe and pouch or
lady's veil; open a book and lay it face down on a table—there's
the story.
"Now, when you put up a card, 'What good stories are you
going to take away with you this week to fill up the idle moments?'
and advertise the books and display in the daily newspaper, the deed
is as good as done. More of those books are going to be sold—
more of the books zverc sold—than under the old hit-or-miss, one-
boy-power window trim plan.
"That is the way Grosset & Dunlap thought the dealers would
see it, and the way they did see it.
"In October the same dealers will be dressing their windows
with pumpkins and cornstalks tipped with the ripe golden ears and
putting in cards prepared by the publishers which will remind the
public that there is also a 'harvest time in the fiction field.'
"That is the idea as it has been developed so far. It appeals
to the dealer because it is a system, a periodical lifting of the deal-
ers' burden of 'getting up ideas' for window display, and it affects
him with a cumulative force second only to that exerted by the sales
which it stimulates and produces.
"What all this means to the manufacturer who is ceaselessly
seeking outlets for his goods and spending small fortunes on each
and every effective form of publicity known to him may be further
illustrated by a recent episode.
"A big department store out in Topeka decided to open up a
book department. It bought a stock of books from a jobber, among
them a lot of Grosset & Dunlap books, and then a Grosset & Dunlap
salesman came along and loaded the store up with a lot more. It
was not a very large order, but the department store manager got
nervous when he began to look them over.
" 'Why,'.he exclaimed, 'we can't turn these over in six months?
and forthwith wrote to the publishers, asking them to cancel half
the order.
"When the publishers' sales manager got the letter, he called
the advertising manager in.
" 'Can't you hand them something in the line of window dis-
play a little out of the ordinary, linked up with local advertising?
Something that will start the goods quick?" he asked, and getting
an optimistic response, turned around and sent the Topeka people
an answer like this:
" 'We thoroughly realize that our interests and your interests
are identical and we want the opportunity to show you how our
dealers in other places dispose of their stocks—to demonstrate that
you, too, may do so at a good profit. It will not cost you a cent.
" 'When you have tried the idea out, we are sure you will be
glad to repeat as often as possible and carry the suggestions over
into your other lines, too. We are positive that the goods will move
rapidly.
" 'Our advertising manager will write you in a few days, put-
ting the plan before you and you will then be able to act with a full
understanding of what it is possible to do.'
"This letter restored confidence in Topeka. In a few days the
advertising man wrote also. He had prepared plans for several
(Continued on page 7.)