Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
Published by The Music Trade Review, 420 Lexington Avenue, New York
Make Th em w ant
Don't Ask Them
to Buy
Whether It Is a Buyer's Market or a Seller's Market, or
Gall It What You Will, It Needs Fundamental Basis-
Making Them Want What You Have in Warerooms
By FRED W. MILLER
Advertising Manager, Ludwig & Ludwig
OBODY counts in the music business
but the fellow who plays and buys
the instrument. He pays the dealer,
the dealer pays the jobber or manu-
facturer, and the manufacturer pays it out for
labor and for materials. In turn, the employes
of the manufacturer and the firms who supply
the material use their wages to buy commodities
that serve to buy more instruments. It is a
circle. Vet it starts and stops with the man
who blows the horn or ripples the keys.
Right now some business men speak of a
buyers' market. It has always been a buyers'
market. It always will be. Can any man coax
you into buying something you do not need or
some service that brings you no pleasure?
Buying habits have never changed. They
never will. Don't ask men to buy—make them
want. As soon as you talk buying they fight
shy of you. A new crop of banjoists is not
created because we may put pearls or diamonds
on the instrument. Youngsters don't take to
the saxophone because it is made with a gold-
plated bell. Pianos are not bought because the
felt used costs $3 a pound. Women do not
buy piano ' scarfs because the scarves have
double-sewed hems.
People buy instruments because they like to
make music. Some people buy them because
they want to emulate the great stars of the
N
stage or radio circles. Others get them to be-
come popular in their local communities. Peo-
ple want music because they like it. Women
buy pianos because they want their daughters
to possess social accomplishments. Folks buy
grand pianos because a neighbor, a relative or a
friend has one. This is the same buying mo-
tive that prompts them to spend more money
on automobiles. The same motives govern
every purchase. It is either profit, pleasure or
pride.
We of the music business are dependent upon
the players and not on a competitive basis
either. Too much time and money is spent in
trying to induce buying by people who already
have instruments. Look for a new crop of
buyers. The fellow without an instrument
presents no trade-in problem. Youth of to-day
wants a new instrument. Big brother Bill's or
dad's will no longer do for them. Every man,
w ment. We've got a bigger market than the in-
surance companies—and their business runs in-
to the billions of dollars annually.
The music-in-the-school movement is the
only progressive promotional activity that has
received any attention by our industry. And
at that a few underpaid educators are carrying
this staggering burden. The Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce is .trying to do some-
Fred W. Miller
thing, but it gets very little support from the
industry as a whole. A few trade papers are
trying hard to help make it successful. Outside
of two phonograph companies, two musical in-
strument makers and several piano firms, little
is being done to put it over properly. It re-
quires concerted action—to get "concerted" ac-
tion, even in the music business, seems to be
rather difficult.
Several slogan campaigns have been sug-
gested. Some of our members think that a
slogan is the solution. Slogans are worthless
without monetary backing. It requires millions
of dollars to keep the "Say It With Flowers"
slogan alive. True, it goes along on momen-
tum, but dollars keep pushing year after year.
Everybody push—that's what we need in the
music business.
A similar plan for our industry will fail.
Why? Because many of our members will ex-
pect miracles overnight. Such a plan will fail
in the music industry because there are not
enough men in this business with vision and
guts to stick it out.