Music Trade Review

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The Music Trade Review
SEPTEMBER 1, 1928
REVIEW
Out September 8
Monthly
Magazine Issue
(Registered in the U . S. Patent Office)
Published Every Saturday by
Federated Business Publications, Inc.
at 420 Lexington Avenue, New York
of
President, Raymond Bill; Vice-Presidents, J. B. Spillane, Randolph Brown; Secre-
tary and Treasurer, Edward Lyman Bill; Assistant Secretary, L. B. McDonald;
Assistant Treasurer, Wm. A. Low.
B. BRITTAIN WILSON, Editor
CARLETOII CHACE, Business Manager
W. H. MCCLEARY, Managing Editor
RAY BILL, Associate Editor
F. L. AVERY, Circulation Manager
E. B. MUNCH, Eastern Representative
THE
WESTERN DIVISION:
BOSTON O F F I C E :
FRANK W. KIHK, Manager
E. J. NEALY
JOHN H. WH-SOM, 324 Washington St.
333 No. Michigan Ave., Chicago
Telephone: State 1266
Telephone: Main 6950
Telephone: Lexington 1760-71
Musical Instrument Promotion Activity
and the General Music Store
The growth of the general music store in the retail
music trades has been one of the outstanding features
of the retail trade for some years. Its extent is shown
in this article, based on a survey undertaken by The
Review of 1,000 music dealers. The importance of this
trend to the trade is also analyzed.
Window Display
Cheapest Advertising
82 Per cent, of retail music merchants can trace sales
directly to their display windows. And those display
windows constitute the cheapest form of advertising
which the music merchant can use. Some figures
that show definitely the value of the window, and the
loss entailed in not using it efficiently.
60 Per Cent. More
Phonographs Can Be Sold
A Middle Western retail music merchant believed this,
as least so far as his department was concerned. He
worked out a plan of handling his salesmen and al-
ready his volume has increased 50 per cent., with the
other 10 per cent, in view. In this article he tells
how he did it.
How Are You Handling the
Radio TradeJn?
Several of the largest music merchants with radio de-
partments in the Metropolitan District tell in this
article just how they are escaping loss in their han-
dling of this problem, one that confronts every music
dealer who sells radio today.
What About Your Hallowe'en
Window Display?
Several ideas for the musical merchandise department
for its October window displays. The Fall buying
season is starting and you want to be ready for it.
Every one of them has a sales punch—they have
proven it in actual practice.
IN ADDITION
A number of other merchandising articles covering every
side of the music merchant's merchandising activities, and
The Monthly Piano Technical Department, an exclusive
feature of The Review.
Out September 8
Vol. 87
I
Cable: Elbill New York
September 1, 1928
No. 9
The $1,000 Slogan Contest
HE music industries is to have a slogan designed to
center public attention upon musical instruments and
particularly upon their playing. The idea has been in
the air for some months past and has finally developed to a point
where a committee, duly appointed to handle the matter, has
formally launched a slogan contest to end on December 1, having
for its object securing a phrase that will be accepted generally as
the keynote for merchandising musical instruments.
Many other industries, as well as individual business houses,
have adopted and used slogans, some of them good, some of indif-
ferent quality, and quite a number rather nonsensical. Some of
these, however, have achieved marked success, notable examples
being the "Say It With Flowers," of the florists, and "Save the
Surface And You Save All," of the paint industry.
If the thousand dollar prize offered by the Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce in the slogan contest for the music trade
brings forth a phrase of equal value, then the money will have been
well spent.
As The Review has pointed out before, however, the simple
adoption of a slogan is not going to increase sales over night. The
slogan is simply a means to an end and should be accepted only
as another lever at the service of the music merchant to help him
pry sales away from a public which at times seems rather indiffer-
ent. If the music merchant merely uses the slogan in his advertis-
ing, and lets it go at that, he is in no better position than before.
The slogan contest itself, if it is carried out as planned, should
prove an excellent medium of publicity for musical instruments and
a means for developing closer contact with prospects. Efforts will
be made to have the newspapers of the country give space to the
competition. But the real opportunity lies with the dealer for, by
a close tieup with the movement, he can develop his prospect list
and get in closer touch with those most able to buy instruments.
A thousand dollars for a phrase sounds like a lot of money. It
has an appeal for the average citizen that the dealer can capitalize
to his own advantage.
A slogan alone will not rejuvenate the business, but it should
help just as will all the other activities that have been launched by
the industry as means for developing better business. It is not that a
single remedy can be found to help things, but the efforts being put
forth to find a solution prove that the industry is alive to the situa-
tion, and that is a matter for congratulation. Hiding facts and
dodging the issue are fatal.
The most important point of all in this slogan contest is the
co-operation with which the retail music merchants work.