AuflUBT 21, 1910. 



The Florists^ Review 



33 



j^mmmm 



^immiiJiK,mmMm^imumj [. 



SAY IT WITH FLOWERS 



r«^Mr•^1^A•^-;y»^1^r•>rt^r♦Y(rr♦^1rr•YhY^lrrs\1r;*^1;^4Y^^^^^^ 



SINCE our last convention the work 

 of the promotion bureau has been 

 carried on with great vigor. At a joint 

 meeting of the publicity committee and 

 publicity finance committee held in 

 Cleveland, January 30, it was decided to 

 aim for a fund of $100,000, instead of 

 $50,000, the mark set for 1918. The 

 committees were unanimously of opin- 

 ion that the larger sum would be forth- 

 coming and the work of collecting same 

 was left to your bureau. At a meeting 

 of the executive board next day in De- 

 troit, at which the committees were 

 present, reports were made by the chair- 

 men of the committees as set out in the 

 issue of our Journal for March, copies 

 of which have been distributed at this 

 convention. So enthusiastic were the 

 members of the committees and the 

 board at this meeting, that among them 

 the sum of $2,065 was subscribed to the 

 campaign fund, much of it in addition 

 to amounts previously subscribed by 

 some. 



Your bureau immediately set to work 

 in an endeavor to raise the larger fund. 

 Large numbers of letter^ in various 

 forms were sent out, followed by others 

 calculated to sustain any interest ex- 

 cited by the first, and appealing to the 

 better instincts of the prospective sub- 

 scribers. About eighty articles contain- 

 ing argument and appeals for subscrip- 

 tions have, since the opening of the cam- 

 paign, been sent to the trade papers, 

 each publication publishing one every 

 week, together with a list of new sub- 

 scriptions reported. This assistance on 

 the part of the trade press is gratefully 

 appreciated by your bureau and by your 

 committees. It might also be here men- 

 tioned that the same papers published 

 recently our entire subscription list, at 

 actual cost of type composition and pa- 

 per stock required, thus giving us the 

 benefit of the combined circulation of 

 the four papers at small cost. 



How the Fund Was Used. 



To show how the fund was being used, 

 a broadside was sent out over a mailing 

 list of approximately 13,000 florists, in- 

 stancing one transaction, necessitating 

 the outlay of about $5,000, which re- 

 sulted in the display of our slogan be- 

 fore 20,000,000 people; or it could 

 perhaps be safely asserted 100,000,000 

 people, as it is generally conceded that 

 there are five readers to every copy of a 

 national magazine — at a proportionate 

 cost of $50 per million, a wonderfully 

 small cost. The broadside also de- 

 scribed and illustrated the various news- 

 paper electrotypes, glass signs, decal- 

 comania signs, lantern slides and stick- 

 ers supplied by the bureau and intended 

 to publicly connect any 'user with the 

 campaign publicity, with the result that 

 much of this material passed into the 

 hands of florists, where they served the 

 purpose not only of individual publicity, 

 but provided that much more publicity 

 for our slogan. 



Your bureau has kept careful record 



From the roport of John YouniJ, manaRPr of thn 

 Promotion IJiirpan of the S. A. F., prpsontod at 

 the Detroit convention, August 20. 1919. 



of florists using newspaper columns for 

 their announcements and has repeatedly 

 urged that they incorporate the slogan, 

 "Say It with Flowers" in all their 

 advertisements, preferably using the 

 same script form adopted for the cam- 

 paign. The reason for this is that the 

 slogan in uniform character is more 

 easily impressed upon the public mind 

 and is in every way more forcible 

 through familiarity. 



The demand for lantern slides has 

 been marked so far through the year. 

 The first series of slides has been sup- 

 plemented, in response to requests from 

 many users, by a second series, and 

 many florists have both. The amount 

 of publicity secured through a constant 

 use of these slides in moving picture 

 houses is too immense to be even 

 guessed. Everybody goes to the "mov- 

 ies" nowadays and the slides when pro- 

 jected compel attention. 



While there has been a fair demand 

 for our line of slogan "stickers," the 

 trade has not used them as generally as 

 might be expected. Their use on boxes, 

 stationery and in many other ways af- 

 fords cheap publicity to our slogan. 

 It has been argued that the people who 

 see it in this form are already custo- 

 mers, but are they not ordinarily as 

 much in need of a reminder as anyone 

 else? The more they see of the slogan, 

 the better customers they are likely to 

 become. 



Value of Signs, Etc. 



The distribution of glass signs bear- 

 ing our slogan for window or wall use 

 has been large. Since the beginning of 

 the campaign the bureau has supplied 

 1,100 of these signs and they are on dis- 

 play in as many establishments through- 

 out the country. In addition, the bureau 

 has disposed of about 650 sets of decal- 

 comania transfer signs which are affixed 

 to windows and door panels and display 

 the slogan to advantage. Florists who 

 have not furnished themselves with one 

 or the other of these signs are missing 

 an opportunity to spread the influence 

 of the slogan and at the same time con- 

 nect their establishments with the mag- 

 azine advertising. The value of such a 

 connection is evidenced by the hun- 

 dreds of congratulatory letters received 

 from members of the craft who have 

 used our service aids to link up with 

 the campaign. That the wisdom of this 

 course is based upon common sense need 

 hardly be pointed out. Not one person 

 present at this convention but who has 

 been impressed with some slogan in 

 trade use applying to a particular com- 

 modity, the name of which is readily 

 suggested when the need for it arises. 

 It is just so with the slogan, "Say It 

 with Flowers." Its suggestive powers 

 are exercised whenever it is seen. 



How many thousands of men, can we 

 suppose, through seeing that slogan in 

 the florists' shops, in the magazines, in 

 local newspapers, on wacons or else- 

 where are reminded of a birthday anni- 

 versary of wife, daughter, or dear 

 friend? Men are many times more for- 

 getful in this respect than women and 



appreciate a reminder which is not at 

 all mandatory. "While the number of 

 signs supplied has been fairly large, it 

 should have been many times larger. 

 The cost of a sign is small and its 

 acquisition easy. When displayed prop- 

 erly it is at work continually, suggest- 

 ing the use of your products to every 

 beholder. The display of even a thou- 

 sand more signs would mean, at the 

 lowest estimate, 1,000 more sales daily, 

 300,000 more sales yearly. Is it any won- 

 der that our slogan has been valued by 

 advertising experts as worth to our craft 

 a million dollars or more? The use of signs 

 need not be confined to shops. We know of 

 many growers who have procured signs 

 for display at points adjacent to public 

 roads passing their establishments. One 

 grower in the vicinity of New York, on 

 a road traveled by hundreds of auto- 

 mobiles daily, has a sign on each gate 

 post at his entries. While upon this 

 subject, it may be stated that the 

 bureau has noticed, with regret, that 

 some in the trade have, in use, distorted 

 the slogan by injecting a proprietary 

 name, such, for instance, as "Say It 

 with Green's Flowers." This is un- 

 necessary and inadvisable, and has a 

 tendency to cheapen, even destroy, the 

 sentiment carried in the message of the 

 original slogan. 



The Question Answered. 



The slogan, we find, works in a multi- 

 tude of ways and there is absolutely no 

 occasion when the suggestion it carries 

 is not in place. As an instance: Last 

 month, in a middle western town, a 

 committee representing an industrial 

 community which had raised a war chest 

 on the plan followed by many such com- 

 munities in different parts of the coun- 

 try, finding in the chest a goodly sized 

 money balance for which there was no 

 real further use, the war having ended, 

 determined to return it, pro rata, to the 

 contributors. The contributors, in 

 grateful appreciation of the commit- 

 tee's action, felt that they should pre- 

 sent the committee with visible evi- 

 dence of their appreciation, but experi- 

 enced difficulty in deciding what form 

 it should take. In the dilemma a con- 

 tributor suggested "Say It with Flow- 

 ers." The suggestion was unanimously 

 approved and a beautiful floral 

 "square," 4^/^x6 feet, was the presenta- 

 tion piece, conveying the sentiment that 

 the committee was "on the square." 

 Who shall say that the slogan did not 

 work in this case? 



While a goodly number of florists 

 have taken advantage of the bureau's 

 electrotype service, there are many 

 others who might do so, with advantage 

 to themselves and the campaign. The 

 electrotypes supplied feature individual 

 advertisements appearing in the maga- 

 zines so closely that when used in local 

 newspapers the similarity is quite ap- 

 parent to a reader, who is likely, if he 

 has been impressed by the magazine an- 

 nouncement, to patronize the florist 

 whose name appears in connection witli 

 the newspaper reproduction. This is an 



