Presto

PRESTO
May 19, 1923
tisement. I have noticed several notable business-paper advertisements of this kind
in recent months.
The American Music Trade Weekly
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
Editors
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234. Private Phones to all De-
partments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago, Illinois,
under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4. Payable in advance. No extra
charge in United States possessions. Cuba and Mexico.
Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
Advertising Rates:—Five dollars per Inch (13 ems pica) for single insertions.
Complete schedule of rates for standing cards and special displays will be furnished
on request. The Presto does not sell Its editorial space. Payment Is not accepted for
articles of descriptive character or other matter appearing in the news columns. Busi-
ness notices will be indicated by the word "advertisement" In accordance with the
Act of August 24, 1912.
Photographs of general trade interest are always welcome, and when used, if of
special concern, a charge will be made to cover cost of the engravings.
Rates for advertising in Presto Year Book Issue and Export Supplements of
Presto will be made known upon application. Presto Year Book and Export issues
have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical in-
strument trades and industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
effectually all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-,
em hemispheres.
Presto Buyers' Guide is the only reliable index to the American Pianos and
Player-Pianos, it analyzes all instruments, classifies them, gives accurate estimates
of their value and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
Items of news and other matter of general interest to the music trades are in-
cited and when accepted will be paid for. All communications should be addressed to
Presto Publishing Co., 407 So. Dearborn Street. Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1923
PRESTO CORRESPONDENCE
IT IS NOT CUSTOMARY WITH THIS PAPER TO PUBLISH REGU-
LAR CORRESPONDENCE FROM ANY POINTS. WE, HOWEVER,
HAVE RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVES IN NEW YORK, BOSTON,
SAN FRANCISCO, PORTLAND, CINCINNATI, INDIANAPOLIS, MIL-
WAUKEE AND OTHER LEADING MUSIC TRADE CENTERS, WHO
KEEP THIS PAPER INFORMED OF TRADE EVENTS AS THEY HAP-
PEN. AND PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE REAL NEWS
OF THE TRADE FROM WHATEVER SOURCES ANYWHERE AND
MATTER FROM SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS, IF USED, WILL BE
PAID FOR AT SPACE RATES. USUALLY PIANO MERCHANTS OR
SALESMEN IN THE SMALLER CITIES, ARE THE BEST OCCA-
SIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, AND THEIR ASSISTANCE IS INVITED.
ADVERTISING INFORMATION
Forms close promptly at noon every Thursday. News matter for
publication should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the same
day. Advertising copy should be in hand before Tuesday, five p. m.,
to insure preferred position. Full page display copy should be in
hand by Monday noon preceding publication day. Want advs. for cur-
rent week, to insure classification, must be at office of publication not
later than Wednesday noon.
ADVERTISING ADVERTISING
Last week's Presto contained an illustrated advertisement of the
Gulbransen'-Dickinson Co., which was a fac-simile of a page display
in the Saturday Evening" Post. Not long" ago a page similarlarly
drawing attention to the advertising of the Q R S Music Co. appeared
in this paper. And there have been other instances of the same kind
of enterprise on the part of large music industries in their publicity
departments. And this phase of publicity enterprise was recently
discussed at length by a writer in Printers' Ink, in a way which must
interest the piano trade.
The Printers' Ink contributor was Mr. John Allen Murphy. And,
while his subject did not directly apply to pianos, it perfectly fits the
methods of the industries whose display pages have appeared in
Presto for the purpose of doing just what Mr. Murphy commends as
one of the most forceful plans for announcing a manufacturer's ad-
vertising campaign. An extract from the Printers' Ink article follows:
What is the best way for a manufacturer to present his advertising plan to his
dealers? With the number of advertisers constantly growing, this is a question of
steadily increasing importance.
Most assuredly consumer advertising should be promoted to the trade in some
way. An advertising campaign is handicapped unless it receives the co-operation
of distributors. The campaign itself is not completely rounded out if it is not built
up from the trade side also.
Business-paper copy, itself, is now widely used as a means of telling dealers about
the advertiser's consumer drive. As a matter of fact, this is probably the most in-
teresting development in the subject about which I am writing. Certainly there is
no more appropriate place for a dealer announcement than in a trade-paper adver-
The point to which Mr. Murphy's article gives emphasis is that
the publicity designed to appear in the consumer medium carries the
very suggestions needed by the trade for the purpose of influencing
local sales. And, still more, that the manufacturer who invests in
costly magazine publicity presents convincing evidence of the deter-
mination to help the retailers by building reputation for his products
from which the merchants everywhere must reap the benefits.
It is what the advertising manufacturer has actually done that
counts for the retailer, and not what he promises to do. If the page
displays in the trade papers are actual reproductions from the ad-
vertisements which have appeared in the consumer mediums, of great
circulation, there is the indisputable proof that the manufacturer is
working, and investing, for the further profit of his customers in the
trade. And this seems to apply with especial emphasis to the piano
trade.
General advertising campaigns entail large investments. Not a
great many of the musical instrument industries have embarked in
it. Still fewer have found that it paid as well as the plan of direct
helps to the local dealers. But as long as the public rests great faith
in the things that are of universal renown, and buys because of sus-
picion of the unknown, pianos must be advertised whether in a general
way, designed to build interest and demand, or by the enthusiasm
of the local dealers whose publicity efforts are largely by personal
introduction.
And the large advertisers gain both influences at once, because
they attract the great public by means of the consumer mediums, and
reinforce it by showing to the dealers what they are doing for them
by means of the trade paper reproductions of the fulfilled promises
which cannot be denied.
There can be no doubting Thomas among the distributors and
salesmen who see in the trade papers the fac-similes of page displays
which have appeared broadcast in the consumer mediums. It is a
modern development of the work of the publicity agencies, and a very
large one.
THE SHOW FEATURE
The promise is for a big convention. It is certain that the "com-
mercial" end of it will exceed anything in the history of past conven-
tions. And it is interesting to note that among the piano industries
which have entered for displays are some which have heretofore
seemed apathetic in such matters. And they, in a number of in-
stances, come from the East as if in a determined effort to capture, or
regain, lost momentum in the West. It is apparent that in the ag-
gregate the display of pianos will be larger than at any of the earlier
conventions.
In this matter of exhibitions, the music convention in Chicago
will show a peculiar contrast to the famous "no-commercialism"
meeting at Detroit a good many years back. At that time, the man-
agement went so far as to cause the Pontchartrain to forbid pianos
being brought into the hotel. The campaign against displays was so
strong that only a few manufacturers disregarded it, and they had
displays at smaller hotels and private rooms.
This time the piano manufacturers have engaged every foot of
space possible at the Drake Hotel, and a number of important indus-
tries have secured rooms in other places, the Great Northern Hotel
having some prominent ones. And the two hotels are a mile distant
one from the other.
A feature of the exhibits during the Chicago convention will be
the element of novelty. There will be a number of novelties in the
way of playerpiano invention, or improvement, and some entirely
new lines of pianos will be displayed.
Two of these will be at the Great Northern, where the Jesse
French & Sons Piano Co. will have its new "Dulcitone," and the Wal-
tham Piano Co. will introduce the new "Waverly" of Milwaukee
manufacture. The Schiller Piano Co. will have its new instrument,
based upon the Bauer method of acoustics and construction, at the
Drake.
The number of player actions shown during the convention will
also give character to that branch of the industry. The Sigler action
will be at the Great Northern and the "Adapto," of the Lindenberg
Piano Co., will also offer itself to trade attention. It would necessi-
tate a re-publication of the long list of exhibitors, which recently
appeared in Presto to give any adequate idea of the extent of the
"commercialism" which will mark the June convention.
The exhibits will be instructive to the dealers, and therefore will
be a very important part of the occasion. The only possible deterrent
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