Music Trade Review

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News Number
THE
VOL. 87. No. 11
REVIEW
Published Weekly.
Federated Business Publications, Inc., 420 Lexington Ave., New York, N. Y. Sept. 15, 1928
"^.
Music Merchants of Ohio Hold
Nineteenth Annual Meet
Annual Gathering Opened September 10 at the Commodore Perry
Hotel, Toledo, Ohio, With Large Attendance—Wide
Variety of Topics Discussed at Sessions
OLEDO, O., September 12.—The nineteenth annual meeting of the Music Merchants'
Association of Ohio, held at the Commodore Perry Hotel here, during the past three
days, proved as successful and as full of interest as have the various annual sessions of
the organization held in the past. The program was a full one and was well carried out with
the various reports indicating that the officers of the Association had been very active in its
interests during the past year.
In order to take full advantage of the time
.-et aside for the convention the first session
was held on Monday afternoon, and served to
prove that golf and business do not always mix
well, for, though the registration was quite
substantial to.- the opening day, a majority re-
paired to the Highland Meadows Country Club
tor the tournament, leaving a rather small num-
ber to carry on the work 01" the Association
and to listen to the speakers scheduled tor that
session. A distinct improvement, however, was
noted in the attendance at the later sessions
tii the convention.
E. C. Boykin Speaks
Following the presentation of the reports of
the officers and council of the Association in
printed form for the convenience of the mem-
bers and as a means of saving time, the first
speaker was Edward C. Boykin, executive sec-
retary of the National Piano Manufacturers'
Association, who outlined in some detail the
progress of the sales promotion campaign that
has been carried on by that organization during
the past year. Mr. Boykin emphasized par-
ticularly that what the piano industry needs as
a lead to more sales is a well-defined and ex-
tensive publicity program of a sort to make
the public "piano conscious, 1 ' and to compete
Edward C. Boykin, who spoke at First Session
with and offset, in some measure, the publicity
of the Convention
campaigns being carried on by other industries.
He declared that piano sales in the future nually in advertising, this including local adver-
would be in direct ratio to the publicity ac- tising by the dealers themselves.
corded the product by both manufacturers and
The piano trade, said Mr. Boykin, has been
dealers. Other industries were spending mil-
going through a remodeling process, as it were,
lions of dollars in advertising and publicity of
and new blood, new methods, new ideas, new
all kinds, among them the General Motors Co. beliefs and new products are found in it.
with an appropriation of $3,000,000 for Frigi- What is lacking is more direct and indirect pub-
daire, and it is with those industries that the licity. He made a strong plea to the assembled
piano men have to compete. As it stands now, merchants to co-operate in the promotion work
said the speaker, the music trade in all its
for their own good, insisting that it was only
branches spends only about $10,000,000 an- through such co-operation on the part of the
T
retailer that the campaign, or any campaign
ot the sort, should be successful.
President Taylor, at the close of Mr. Boy-
kin's talk, strongly endorsed the sentiments ex-
pressed and also urged co-operation from the
dealers. The piano man, he said, in his travels
and his social contacts should talk shop at
every opportunity to the extent, at least, of
having his acquaintances, neighbors and friends
know that he was in the business of selling
pianos.
The next speaker was John S. Gorman, sales
manager of the Gulbransen Co., Chicago, who
first attended the Ohio convention last year in
Cleveland immediately after he had left the
steel industry to enter the piano business. He
I old what he had learned, about this industry
as an outsider traveling about the country in
an effort to survey the situation, during tin
past year.
Mr. Gorman again stressed the need for a
united industry working together in an effort
to meet the competition offered by other lines
of business. flu particularly emphasized the
need for more retail salesmen to develop anil
maintain contact with prospective buyers of
pianos. Wherever dealers had adequate man
power and are working-persistently and con-
sistently, pianos are being sold, he said. He
cited several instances for the benefit of his
audience. At the present time there are over
8,500,000 children studying the piano in this
country, and millions of new homes had been
erected during the past lew years; yet in those
homes, where everything else was new and
shining, the piano was old. Mr. Gorman closed
with a reference to an experience in a city of
100,000 population, where an old-established
dealer said there was little piano business to be
had but that he was well known and prospective
buyers would come to his store. Mr. Gorman
thereupon made over sixty calls at homes and
dug up ten prospects, three of them "hot," just
to prove his point that more effort was needed.
Monday Night Meeting
The get-acquainted meeting of the Ohio As-
sociation on Monday evening, an entirely new
idea in association entertainment, proved to be
a great success. The ballroom of the Commo-
dore Perry Hotel was arranged like a small
Monte Carlo with various games of chance
which the guests played with trick money of
big denominations. Arthur L. Wessell, at the
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