Music Trade Review
Issue: 1925 Vol. 80 N. 13 - Page 3
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REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXX. No. 13 Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y., Mar. 28, 1925 * in %lf 0o $™
& acr ° nt *
Bait Advertisers Parasites on the
Legitimate Music Dealer
Destructive Tactics Batten on Exploitation Work Done Among the Buying Public by the Retail Music
Merchant Who Expends Thought, Energy and Money in Developing the Educational Side of
the Player-piano in His Advertising Copy and in His Selling Campaigns
I
T is a favorite remark of some business men
that business is essentially selfish and that
therefore it may always be depended on to
take the shortest cut to profit, even though to
do so it has to cut across the lots of trade
decency, and honor.
The belief thus expressed has unhappily just
enough of truth in it to catch the attention and
interest of superficial thinkers. Nevertheless it
is essentially a destructive and a lying belief.
For the fact is that a wholly selfish business
world would be a world that would destroy
itself. If every man were a predatory genius
ol" business, like some of the old-time kings
of Wall street, the Jay Goulds and the Russell
Sages, there would soon be no business left,
for the geniuses would destroy one another.
If every man took the bankers' advice and
saved all his money, business would cease, the
banks perforce would cease, too, and what we
call modern civilization would come to an end.
Fortunately most men prefer to engage in busi-
ness for the sole purpose of obtaining power
(through money) to do the things they want
to do in life, which are mostly more or less
admirable. Business, to most men, happily, is
a sort of game; and the fact that it is an al-
most universal game, sometimes even occupy-
ing too much of the time and thought of our
modern society, does not alter the fact that a
game it essentially is, played b\ its myriad
devotees with a gusto and an e n c ^ of which
it is hard to complain, save only
^he score
of its too exclusive hold o.. the m ds and
imaginations of the people.
The Fallacy rf Sell Only
Rut that business can ever be run u^
an
exclusively selfish basis is* one of the most ri-
diculous of fallacies. Any business depend
upon the desires and the good-will of those
people wi ) whatever their numbers, consti-
tute its p*. •• f "al customers. Any business can
live just so long as, and no longer than, it
can intrigue those desires and maintain that
good-will.
Well, now in the piano business, and par-
ticularly in the player-piano business, what are
the desires of the people, and to what extent
can their good-will be captured?
To answer these questions, let us first ask
another one: What do the people generally
think about the player-piano?
The answer undoubtedly is that they think
little about the player-piano itself, but a great
deal more about what the player-piano exists
to provide, which is music. And that is only
another way of saying that to sell the player-
' I 1HE music merchant ivho develops his
sales purely through the lure <;/ the low-
price "bait" is to-day one of the most de-
structive elements in the retail piano indus-
try. Unfortunately the advertisers of this
type are only able to exist due to the real
development work that is being put into the
player-piano by the large majority of both
manufacturers and merchants. Low prices
without such preliminary work would never
make sales. The remedy lies with the trade
itself; to cash in on its work it must elimi-
nate the parasites within its ranks.—EDITOR.
piano successfully, the foreground of the sales
appeal must be the product of the player-
piano rather than the player-piano itself.
Old But True
Of course this is only to repeat what has
been said over and over again; yet it is to re-
peat also something which appears to be as
little generally understood by some business
men as it ever was. It is simply to say that
the appeal of the player-piano is the appeal of
its music; and that the business man who
imagines that he can cut across corners and
Imild up a successful selling structure in the
1- vcr-piano field by appealing to any other
me
selfish motive is vastly in error.
When something was said about the futility
of the selfish conception of business, the in-
tention was to lead up to the understanding
that sales cannot be built successfully in the
player field when the seller thinks only of how
he may, by hook or by crook, secure the distri-
bution of the largest number of instruments,
without regard to good-will, satisfaction or the
future. For, even if in other industries the
stress may be laid on turnover alone, in this
industry it must be laid quite as much upon
the'good-will of the consumer.
"For Profit Only"
If a man says that he is "out for profit only,"
and does not care how he gets it, then he ought
not to be selling pianos or player-pianos. If
he does not know in his heart that every time
he sells a player-piano he is selling pleasure,
Inn, entertainment and some more brightness
in life, he has no right to be in the player
business. Probably experts in other lines could
.show that such a man belongs rightly in no
legitimate business at all, but has his place
only among those hangers-on of legitimate 'busi-
ness, like the peddlers of dubious stocks.
Those men illustrate peculiarly, and carry to
its logical conclusion, the belief that business
is properly all selfishness; and they naturally
appeal to the motive of selfishness or of "some-
thing for nothing" in appealing to their pros-
pective customers. But those men stand by
themselves; and precious few of the rest of us
envy them in the least.
The music business, at least, is not, and can-
not be, all selfishness. In fact it has to be built
upon the idea of satisfaction and service mere-
ly because by its very nature it has to deal
with the things of the mind and the soul. You
cannot dissociate the properties of a thing from
the sale of it. No one will buy a player-piano
because it costs only $300 dollars or because a
bench, a scarf and a floor lamp, with twelve
music rolls, are thrown in free with the pur-
chase; or are alleged so to be thrown in free.
No one will buy a player-piano solely for any
such reason. The ground of the mind must
first have been fertilized by publicity of some
kind and some sort of background must there-
by have been created. The most susceptible
man or woman on earth must have been in
some way prepared for the idea "player-piano"
before he or she can take any interest in a
"bargain" advertisement, as such.
A Double Sin
In other words, the selfish man, believing
that all business is a sort of guerilla warfare
in which anything and everything is fair, when
he deliberately sets himself to catch trade by
appealing to the lowest and the basest instincts,
actually has to base his campaigns upon the
work which his legitimate competitors have
done in building up a community belief in the
(Continued on page 6)
REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXX. No. 13 Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y., Mar. 28, 1925 * in %lf 0o $™
& acr ° nt *
Bait Advertisers Parasites on the
Legitimate Music Dealer
Destructive Tactics Batten on Exploitation Work Done Among the Buying Public by the Retail Music
Merchant Who Expends Thought, Energy and Money in Developing the Educational Side of
the Player-piano in His Advertising Copy and in His Selling Campaigns
I
T is a favorite remark of some business men
that business is essentially selfish and that
therefore it may always be depended on to
take the shortest cut to profit, even though to
do so it has to cut across the lots of trade
decency, and honor.
The belief thus expressed has unhappily just
enough of truth in it to catch the attention and
interest of superficial thinkers. Nevertheless it
is essentially a destructive and a lying belief.
For the fact is that a wholly selfish business
world would be a world that would destroy
itself. If every man were a predatory genius
ol" business, like some of the old-time kings
of Wall street, the Jay Goulds and the Russell
Sages, there would soon be no business left,
for the geniuses would destroy one another.
If every man took the bankers' advice and
saved all his money, business would cease, the
banks perforce would cease, too, and what we
call modern civilization would come to an end.
Fortunately most men prefer to engage in busi-
ness for the sole purpose of obtaining power
(through money) to do the things they want
to do in life, which are mostly more or less
admirable. Business, to most men, happily, is
a sort of game; and the fact that it is an al-
most universal game, sometimes even occupy-
ing too much of the time and thought of our
modern society, does not alter the fact that a
game it essentially is, played b\ its myriad
devotees with a gusto and an e n c ^ of which
it is hard to complain, save only
^he score
of its too exclusive hold o.. the m ds and
imaginations of the people.
The Fallacy rf Sell Only
Rut that business can ever be run u^
an
exclusively selfish basis is* one of the most ri-
diculous of fallacies. Any business depend
upon the desires and the good-will of those
people wi ) whatever their numbers, consti-
tute its p*. •• f "al customers. Any business can
live just so long as, and no longer than, it
can intrigue those desires and maintain that
good-will.
Well, now in the piano business, and par-
ticularly in the player-piano business, what are
the desires of the people, and to what extent
can their good-will be captured?
To answer these questions, let us first ask
another one: What do the people generally
think about the player-piano?
The answer undoubtedly is that they think
little about the player-piano itself, but a great
deal more about what the player-piano exists
to provide, which is music. And that is only
another way of saying that to sell the player-
' I 1HE music merchant ivho develops his
sales purely through the lure <;/ the low-
price "bait" is to-day one of the most de-
structive elements in the retail piano indus-
try. Unfortunately the advertisers of this
type are only able to exist due to the real
development work that is being put into the
player-piano by the large majority of both
manufacturers and merchants. Low prices
without such preliminary work would never
make sales. The remedy lies with the trade
itself; to cash in on its work it must elimi-
nate the parasites within its ranks.—EDITOR.
piano successfully, the foreground of the sales
appeal must be the product of the player-
piano rather than the player-piano itself.
Old But True
Of course this is only to repeat what has
been said over and over again; yet it is to re-
peat also something which appears to be as
little generally understood by some business
men as it ever was. It is simply to say that
the appeal of the player-piano is the appeal of
its music; and that the business man who
imagines that he can cut across corners and
Imild up a successful selling structure in the
1- vcr-piano field by appealing to any other
me
selfish motive is vastly in error.
When something was said about the futility
of the selfish conception of business, the in-
tention was to lead up to the understanding
that sales cannot be built successfully in the
player field when the seller thinks only of how
he may, by hook or by crook, secure the distri-
bution of the largest number of instruments,
without regard to good-will, satisfaction or the
future. For, even if in other industries the
stress may be laid on turnover alone, in this
industry it must be laid quite as much upon
the'good-will of the consumer.
"For Profit Only"
If a man says that he is "out for profit only,"
and does not care how he gets it, then he ought
not to be selling pianos or player-pianos. If
he does not know in his heart that every time
he sells a player-piano he is selling pleasure,
Inn, entertainment and some more brightness
in life, he has no right to be in the player
business. Probably experts in other lines could
.show that such a man belongs rightly in no
legitimate business at all, but has his place
only among those hangers-on of legitimate 'busi-
ness, like the peddlers of dubious stocks.
Those men illustrate peculiarly, and carry to
its logical conclusion, the belief that business
is properly all selfishness; and they naturally
appeal to the motive of selfishness or of "some-
thing for nothing" in appealing to their pros-
pective customers. But those men stand by
themselves; and precious few of the rest of us
envy them in the least.
The music business, at least, is not, and can-
not be, all selfishness. In fact it has to be built
upon the idea of satisfaction and service mere-
ly because by its very nature it has to deal
with the things of the mind and the soul. You
cannot dissociate the properties of a thing from
the sale of it. No one will buy a player-piano
because it costs only $300 dollars or because a
bench, a scarf and a floor lamp, with twelve
music rolls, are thrown in free with the pur-
chase; or are alleged so to be thrown in free.
No one will buy a player-piano solely for any
such reason. The ground of the mind must
first have been fertilized by publicity of some
kind and some sort of background must there-
by have been created. The most susceptible
man or woman on earth must have been in
some way prepared for the idea "player-piano"
before he or she can take any interest in a
"bargain" advertisement, as such.
A Double Sin
In other words, the selfish man, believing
that all business is a sort of guerilla warfare
in which anything and everything is fair, when
he deliberately sets himself to catch trade by
appealing to the lowest and the basest instincts,
actually has to base his campaigns upon the
work which his legitimate competitors have
done in building up a community belief in the
(Continued on page 6)
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