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MAKING THE MOST m 

 M OF OPPORTUNITY 



St. Valentine's day is a ready-made opportunity for florists to boost 

 their business. And repeated trials have proved, beyond the shadow of 

 doubt, that cooperative advertising is a splendid way to increase the sale 

 of fiowers. What;~4hen, is thd most effective form of cooperative advertis 

 infff This article contains the answer. 



I 



lEXT to Mothers' day, St. 

 Valentine's day has put 

 more money into the pock- 

 eta of the trade than any- 

 thing The Eeview ever has 

 exploited. And 'Valen- 

 tine 's is close . at hand 

 again. Time to get busy. 



Just by way of refreshing memories 

 it may be well to look back to Janu- 

 ary 30, 1913, when The Review pub- 

 lished a St. Valentine's Day Number 

 in which it was conspicuously stated: 

 "The purpose of this issue is to get 

 10,000 florists each to do at least a 

 little something to attract the attention 

 of the public to the appropriateness of 

 flowers for use as valentines." That 

 was the real beginning of St. Valen- 

 tine's as a special flower day. 



Perhaps that St. Val- 

 entine's Number of The 

 Reveiw fell short of its 

 purpose to get 10,000 

 florists to advertise 

 flowers for use as val- 

 entines, but the results 

 really were «urprisingly 

 good. Hundreds took 

 up the suggestions, with 

 great success, and last 

 year literally thousands 

 lent their assistance. 

 The way sales jumped 

 is a matter of common 

 knowledges* 



This year still greater 

 numbers will prepare 

 and advertise "For a 

 Valentine, Send Her 

 Flowers. ' ' After years 

 of neglect, February 14, 

 with the aid of a little 

 publicity, quickly has 

 become one of the im- 

 portant days on the 

 trade calendar. It has 

 been demonstrated that, 

 as The Review said 

 when it first called at- 

 tention to the undevel- 

 oped opportunity, * * all 

 the public needs is the 

 suggestion to send flow- 

 ers." 



Tli«~ Better Method. | 



The results which 

 have followed the va- 

 rious methods of adver- 

 tising flowers for val- 

 entines have been . .sq 

 good as to .dispel all 

 doubt as t<ri\Le . desira- 

 bility of the effort; it 



has been one of the most successful 

 the trade ever has made. The only 

 question, then, is as to the method 

 that produces the most for the money. 



Advertising is of two kinds. One kind 

 is designed to en«ble" the advertiser to 

 increase his share of the business re- 

 sulting from an established demand. 

 The other kind is designed to awaken 

 additional demand. Of course the flo- 

 rist who buys newspaper space does 

 so with the idea of increasing his own 

 individual sales, but advertising the 

 appropriateness of flowers for use as 

 valentines has the effect of stimulating 

 business for all dealers in flowers — 

 everyone in the trade reaps a benefit. 



Out of this situation developed the 

 suggestion made in The Review's St. 

 Valentine's Day Number in 1913, for 



A Full Page \a Two Colors Paid for by Ten Retail Flori^U at Columbus. 



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For a Valentine Send Her Flowers 



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cooperative advertising^adverti sing 

 paid' for by subscriptions from a num- 

 ber of florists in a community. Thi» 

 suggestion was taken up in several 

 cities and used to splendid effect, but 

 nowhere more intelligently than at 

 Columbus, Ohio. Consequently, the ex- 

 perience gained there will be of value- 

 in every other city where the condition* 

 are such the trade can get together. 



Pooling the Funds. 



Experience has shown that, in the 

 average city of a dozen or more florists^ 

 better results are to be had by pool- 

 ing the funds than by individual ad- 

 vertising. Also, it has been shown that 

 the best success has been had where- 

 the florists, instead of acting for them- 

 selves, called in the advertising mana^ 

 ger of the leading paper^ 

 put the business in his 

 hands and followed hi» 

 advice. Indeed, it no- 

 doubt is due to the en- 

 ergy and skill of J» 

 R. Hague, of the Ohio- 

 State Journal, that the 

 florists of Columbua 

 scored so great a suc- 

 cess. 



The first time these 

 Ohio florists tried co- 

 operative adverti s i n g^ 

 for St. Valentine's Day 

 a general advertisement 

 carried, in small type, 

 the names of the 

 twenty-one "leading flo- 

 rists of Columbus," who 

 subscribed the funds> 

 It worked so well that 

 when May and Mothers '^ 

 day came along the 

 paper worked up an- 

 other flower page, only 

 this time the page was 

 divided into eight spaces 

 of equal size to be sold 

 to the eight largest 

 dealers. The next St. 

 Valentine 's day, how- 

 ever, they went back to 

 the original idea. "We 

 found it far • better," 

 says Mr. Hague, "to 

 bunch thp names and 

 addresses at the bottom 

 of a general ad than to 

 give each florist a small 

 individual space on the 

 page. That naethod 

 tended \" to ^'et V^hem 

 'scrapping' among 

 themselves and we had 



