The talking machine world (Aug-Dec 1919)

26 THE TALKING MACHINE WORLD December 15, 1919 THE EDISON POLICY IN REGARD TO NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING Wm. Maxwell, Vice-President of Thos. A. Edison, Inc., Explains to "Newspaperdom" the Attitude of the Company in Regard to Newspaper Advertising — Believes in Helping All A recent interview in "Newspaperdom" with William Maxwell, vice-president of Thomas A. Edison, Inc., is of interest to the trade, in that is clearly explains the attitude of the Edison Co. in regard to newspaper advertising. In commenting on the advertising policy of the company, Mr. Maxwell has always said: "We want to help the live dealers — the ones who will help themselves. There is a limit to the amount that any company can spend in newspaper advertising. We don 't want a dollar of our money to go to a dead or disloyal dealer. We want it all to go to loyal and live Edison dealers. This is the reason for the sales promotion plans, whereby newspaper advertising at our expense is made contingent upon the dealer doing things which show he is both live and loyal. It means that such a dealer gets a bigger slice of our money than he would otherwise receive and that the inactive or disloyal dealer gets none of it. ' ' The following is the interview which Mr. Maxwell gave to ' ' Newspaperdom ' ' : "Two or three years ago we had a prize contest, extensively advertiser1, in the magazines. We prepared newspaper copy and sent it to our dealers, urging them to run the newspaper copy contemporaneously with our magazine advertising. In our letter, or bulletin, to the dealers, we stated that we proposed to make up special scrapbooks of the dealers ' advertising in connection with this contest and that such scrapbooks would be shown to Mr. Edison. We, therefore, urged each dealer to send us clippings of his advertisements. ' ' Somehow or other, our bulletin to dealers got into the hands of one of the newspaper trade papers. I don't think it was 'Newspaperdom,' but perhaps it was. The editor literally took the hide off of us by means of an editorial, which denounced us for asking our dealers to do what he believed we should have done at our own FAULTLESS PIVOT BEARING CASTERS Casters that roll easily across the floor — and smoothly. No chatter — no unsteadiness. Simple construction — no complicated parts to get out of order, nothing to retard easy movement. Strong — plenty of metal in required places to resist strains. Silent — neat appearing — a real necessity to YOUR talking machine, these FAULTLESS CASTERS. Made with leather, fibre, felt, steel and lignum-vitae wheels. A word from you puts all our caster experience at your service and brings you a copy of Faultless Catalog "G", FAULTLESS CASTER COMPANY EVANSVILLE, INDIANA Full Size — C-65 "Move the FAULTLESS Way" Eastern Sales Office: Geo. Mittleman, 487 Broadway, N. Y. II QT FV'Q GRAPHITE PHONO SPRING LUBRICANT llaiey'i Lubricant makes the Motor make good Is prepared in the proper consistency, will not run out. dry up, or become sticky or rancid. Remains in its.original form indefinitely Put up in 1,5, 10, 25 and 50-pound cam for dealer i. This lubricant is also put up in 4-ounce cans to retail at 25 ceots each under the trade name ol FURFKA NOISELESS TALKING MACHINE LUBRICANT Write for special proposition to jobbers. ILSLEY-DOUBLEDAY & CO.. 229-231 Front St., New York expense. He also ridiculed our statement that we intended to show the advertising scrapbooks to Mr. Edison. As a matter of fact, we did intend to show the scrapbooks to Mr. Edison, we did show them to him and he looked through them with a great deal of interest. His ability to feel a genuine interest in such matters helps to keep him young. ' ' That minor point disposed of, let us take up the other question. In this particular case, more than 2,000 of our dealers responded to our request and ran newspaper advertising in conjunction with our magazine advertising. In other words, the dealers used about ten times as much newspaper space as we could have afforded to use and the editor was quarreling with a policy which brought more money into the cash drawers of the newspapers than any other, policy we could have adopted. ' ' There seems to be an impression abroad that we believe a phonograph manufacturer should spend all of his appropriation in magazines and farm papers and none of it in newspapers. There is probably no manufacturer who believes more fully in newspaper advertising than we do, but until recently we have been unable to find a satisfactory way of spending our money in the newspapers. "Five or six years ago we ran a newspaper campaign at about 200 central points and appended the names and addresses of the local dealers. This campaign was very successful, so far as these 200 towns were concerned and the dealers in these particular towns were highly pleased but they acted a good deal like the ghost which ran a foot race with Nigger Sam. Sam was walking by a graveyard one night and a ghost started after him. Sam outran the ghost for about a mile and then sat down, exhausted. The ghost, catching up with him, sat down beside Sam and said: 'That was a mighty fine race we had; let's have another.' When our campaign was over, the dealers in these 200 towns said to us: 'That was might fine advertising you did; let 's have some more of it. ' When we suggested that maybe they might do a little advertising themselves in addition to the small space they had been using in conjunction with our advertising, they were shocked at the idea. Meanwhile, in the 3,000 odd towns wherein we had done no advertising, the dealers were complaining and refusing to put forth any noteworthy sales effort until we had run an advertising campaign in their respective towns. "A situation thus arose where it seemed necessary to say to our dealers that we would do {Continued on Page 27.) ROTTEN STONE We are the only miners and manufacturers in this country of Rotten Stone for use in Phonograph Record making. Our product is now in use by practically every record manufacturer in this country. We are also headquarters for all other minerals for record making and everything we handle is made especially for this purpose and absolutely guaranteed. Expert advice given upon any formula. KEYSTONE MINERALS CO. 41 Union Square, New York City