Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
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Published by The Music Trade Review, 420 Lexington Avenue, New York
1
Artists' Tie-ups
Secret of Fretted
/nstrument
In a recent article in The Review there was
described the manner in which Gibson, Inc.,
Kalamazoo, Mich., has worked out a highly effi-
cient system for running down prospective pur-
chasers of their goods so that the dealer can
comb his territory to the best advantage. The
plan enables the dealer to go after potential
buyers of banjos, guitars and ukuleles in a
manner that is sure to create buyer interest. So
much for the arousing of interest.
When the interest is worked up to a white
heat, so to speak, the hunted suddenly and
unsuspectingly becomes the hunter and the
prospect quite naturally is moved to seek the
Gibson dealer. The hunt is never made difficult
for the buyer-to-be, for a well-beaten trail leads
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Nick Lucas
straight to a nearby representative. At the end
of the trail is the dealer's cash register and the
customer's satisfaction in the ownership of a
fine banjo, guitar or whatever fretted instru-
ment he prefers to play.
Blazing the trail to the dealer's ,store is the
work of the Gibson representatives, and is ac-
complished in a variety of interesting ways,
such as through talking motion pictures, the
radio, phonograph.records, the stage and teach-
ers of fretted instruments.
By co-operating with featured players in the
talkies, Gibson, Inc. is able to provide its deal-
ers with tie-ups that can be readily transposed
into dollars and cents. Take the case of Nick
Lucas, for instance. When the famous "croon-
Nick Lucas Window Tie-up—J. W. Jenkins Co., Kansas City
27
ing troubadour" came to the front in his crown-
ing achievement, "Gold Diggers of Broadway,"
there was registered in the guitar field a very
pronounced leap in sales. The guitar trade was
stimulated particularly among dealers in Gibson
guitars, since Lucas played a Gibson, made ac-
cording to his own specifications.
That was one of the many cases where, by a
constant hammering away at the fretted instru-
ment prospect through national advertising,
sales letters and a multitude of other valuable
methods of creating buyer interest, Gibson, by
a few timely suggestions, was able to send sev-
eral thousand persons in search of the nearest
Gibson dealer for the "Nick Lucas Special'
guitars.
In the radio and sound pictures, Gibson has,
in addition to Nick Lucas, scores of headliners
playing their instruments, any one of whom can
put the dealer, in whose town the artist might
be playing, squarely in the path of many per-
sons interested in fretted instruments. This, of
course, is almost entirely the duty of the dealer.
Gibson keeps constantly reminding the dealer
of the unlimited opportunities to tie up with art-
ists playing their city, and keeps the dealer
posted on the ever-increasing list of new famous
players to join the "Gibsonite army."
So thoroughly educated are hundreds of pros-
pects to the Gibson before a show such as "Gold
Diggers of Broadway" is released that little is
needed, when the picture arrives in the dealer's
city, to close any number of sales. Just a
timely newspaper advertisement, window dis-
play, or a series of placards, and the sales begin.
Among the better known headliners in radio
and pictures, with whom the dealer can tie up
his local publicity and sales campaign, by virtue
of their connections with the firm of Gibson,
Inc., are the following:
{Please turn to page 29)