18 



The Florists^ Review 



March 6. 1919 



"As we were somewhat delayed in 

 getting the finance and publicity com- 

 mittees together to consider the 1919 

 campaign, it was decided that during 

 January and February, 1919, we should 

 concentrate our advertising efforts upon 

 our slogan, 'Say It with Flowers,' and 

 with this idea in view we are inserting 

 this slogan during January and Febru- 

 ary in practically every magazine of 

 prominence in this country. We are 

 using small space, it is true, but we are 

 obliged to do so, on account of the fact 

 that we did not want to expend more 

 than $5,000 during the entire two 

 months and felt that if we could impress 

 our slogan, 'Say It with Flowers,' 

 upon the minds of over 11,000,000 people 

 during these two months, we would 

 be helping all future publicity work tre- 

 mendously, because, after all, to my 

 mind, this slogan, 'Say It with Flow- 

 ers,* is one that is worth a great deal 

 to the florists of this country and the 

 more we can make people remember and 

 think of it the more business Avill it 

 make for all of us. 



"It is regrettable that so few of our 

 members have contributed to the pub- 

 licity fund and yet are able to partici- 

 pate in the benefits of this campaign. I 

 hope that as time goes on we shall find 

 some method of educating the public 

 to patronize those retail florists who dis- 

 play the sign, 'Say It with Flowers,' 

 just as the United Cigars Stores and 

 other institutions are enabled to direct 

 people to their establishments. 



"In closing, I wish to repeat what I 

 have said before: That I believe one 

 of the best things we have done as busi- 

 ness men during my connection with the 

 Society of American Florists has been 

 the carrying on of this publicity cam- 

 paign and I feel that its benefits will 

 become more evident and that we shall 

 all be glad to be identified and have it 

 known that we are engaged in the busi- 

 ness that we all love so well." 



Mr. Penn announced the decision of 

 the publicity committees to make an 

 effort to raise $100,000 this year for 

 the compaign fund. 



Report of Finance Committee. 



Chairman George Asmus of the pub- 

 licity finance- committee reported as fol- 

 lows: 



"I am going to make some remarks 

 and ask the secretary to substantiate 

 them from the records. You have heard 

 from Mr. Penn that there has been given 

 to this committee the task of collecting 

 $100,000. It will be a big job, but I 

 think we can do it. Had it not been for 

 the unusual conditions in October, there 

 is not a doubt in my mind that I 

 would have pulled over the $50,000 cam- 

 paign as we figured. I am going to re- 

 port to you that yesterday we again con- 

 tracted with the O'Keefe Advertising 

 Agency to carry on our work for the 

 coming year and we have appropriated 

 the sum of $20,000 to start this work. 

 The report of the secretary will show 

 you how the people of this country have 

 appreciated this publicity by 'coming 

 across' with their second subscriptions 

 and you will hear some of the nice 

 things that have been said by the people 

 that did 'come across.' 



"I want to ask the presidents of the 

 affiliated organizations in this board to 

 take every opportunity to spread the 

 eospel of publicity and get contributions 

 from every florist in their communities 

 to carry on this important work. I want 

 to impress that upon the various officers 



of the organization who are a power in 

 their communities and in their organiza- 

 tions. 



"It is true that in some instances 

 wonderful work has been done; but in 

 other cases we have met with a very 

 lukewarm reception. Of course, the plan 

 that we adopted of sending the secretary 

 about the country is possibly the great- 

 est thing that we did. In considering it 

 among ourselves, we figured that the 

 average cost per day in traveling ex- 

 penses of the man who went out — Mr. 

 Young accepted this job — would be from 

 $10 to $15 a day. Mr. Young will sub- 

 stantiate what I am telling you now, 

 that there were but few days that we 

 did not average from $200 to $400, and 

 in some instances $600 a day receipts. 

 Now, any ordinary merchant, in selling 

 goods, has to figure on a margin of about 

 five or six per cent profit, or perhaps 

 ten per cent, on his merchandise, and 

 he thinks that does not seem much. But 

 we have realized 100 per cent. If the 

 secretary went into a town and secured 

 the membership of but one man, who 

 signed up for $10 for four years, that 

 meant $40 collected from that man; and 

 if he secured $500 or $600 worth of sub- 

 scriptions — which in many cases he did 

 — you should multiply that by four, for 

 the number of years. Another thing 

 that he did was to get the money for 

 the first year's subscription then and 

 there, which saved our committee a lot 

 of expense and trouble. 



Results Almost Marvelous. 



"It must have been surprising to you 

 gentlemen when you heard the secre- 

 tary's report read, to see what a large 

 percentage was sent in of the amounts 

 subscribed. He started out receiving 

 voluntary subscriptions, not money; but 

 those subscriptions were all collected to 

 within a few hundred dollars of the 

 $45,000 subscribed, which was almost 

 marvelous, considering the financial con- 

 dition of most florists before the turn 

 for the better came and the results of 

 our publicity campaign showed up this 

 year. 



' ' This year we are going to aim at a 

 higher goal. Everybody is interested in 

 our object; we have a wonderful ar- 

 ticle to sell, and at a cheap price. The 

 talking points are so numerous and 

 so good that every one of you gentlemen 

 can well feel proud to talk about them. 

 Everything connected with this pub- 

 licity campaign is above reproach. The 

 expenses connected with the work have 

 been as nothing when compared to the 

 gratifying results obtained. The man 

 who subscribed $100 a year and pays 

 $8 a month, or $2 a week, most likely 

 may be a man who is doing a $100,000 or 



a $150,000 business. Just think how lit- 

 tle he is paying, yet how much he is do- 

 ing. But the great thing is that we are 

 trying to get everybody to pay his 

 just share. It is indeed unfair to expect 

 some big-hearted man, like Philip Breit- 

 meyer, for instance, to subscribe $500 

 to this fund, unjust in proportion to 

 what some of the other men, who are 

 supposed to be good florists, are doing. 

 Some do something and others little. It 

 seems to me that we ought to seek to 

 find some means whereby everybody 

 shall participate to the same extent as 

 Mr. Breitmeyer in the fund, or in pro- 

 portion to their means. The trip of 

 the secretary has given us a further op- 

 portunity. Take the state of California: 

 Before Mr. Young visited there he had 

 committees appointed in every section. 

 I had the state vice-president suggest 

 the names, and we tried in every way 

 to get the livest wires possible — men 

 who had been former officials and corre- 

 spondents. The first trip of the secre- 

 tary over the country proved its real 

 benefit by putting the question to men 

 direct, shaking them by the hand and, 

 in nine cases out of ten, getting their 

 subscriptions. We hope to get the sec- 

 retary on such a trip again to interest 

 the California section of the country, 

 because we have only scratched the sur- 

 face. For that reason, I do not think 

 our committee will hesitate to say that 

 we are going to increase the fund to 

 $100,000. We expect all of you gentle- 

 men to be mouthpieces whenever the 

 secretary gets into your neighborhoods. 

 We want you to turn out and help him, 

 because he is doing your work, and I 

 hope he will meet with the response 

 from all of you and that you will all help 

 us in this task, because it is 'some' task 

 to collect $100,000." 



The Secretary's Report. 



Secretary Young read the figures of 

 receipts and disbursements, accompany- 

 ing the same by comments on various 

 items. He stated that much of the 

 money had been received since the first 

 of the year, and that he did not believe 

 there would be more than $200 or $300 

 that would not be collected. From the 

 replies he had received from subscribers, 

 he said, he believed, they would prob- 

 ably pay two subscriptions at the same 

 time. He stated that a great deal of the 

 postage had been used in sending out 

 "dealers' helps." It was the inten- 

 tion of the publicity committee to make 

 no profit on these "dealers' helps," 

 but it was required that they should 

 pay their way. The more florists could 

 be induced to use stickers, glass signs, 

 etc., the more help it would be to gen- 

 eral business. In addition to the finan- 



It is Necessary 



to eliminate overtime costs in printing The 

 Review. Advertisers are urged to send in 

 copy on Thursday, Friday and Saturday 

 whenever possible. If copy is not received 

 until Tuesday we have to pay double for 

 setting the type. 



