ty of his particular brand. Through his
salesmen the packer shows the grocer how to display the coffee on the
counter and in the window, and often supplies him with placards and
cut-outs featuring his brand. He co-operates in staging special coffee
demonstrations in the store; instructs the retailer in the importance of
teaching his clerks how to talk and to sell coffee intelligently; and
how to prepare advertising copy for his local newspaper, so as to get
the fullest measure of profit from the wholesaler's national or
sectional advertising.

_Coffee Sampling_

The sampling method of creating a demand for merchandise has been tried
in the wholesale coffee trade, only to be abandoned by the majority of
packers. With other and more satisfactory ways of creating consumer
interest, promiscuous sampling was found to be too expensive, in view of
the comparatively small returns. One indictment against sampling is that
it does not make any more impression on the average person than does an
advertisement that appears only once, and is then abandoned. Wideawake
merchants have learned that the public's memory is exceedingly short;
and that they must keep "hammering" with advertisements to establish and
to maintain a demand for their products.

It would seem that the logical place for sampling is in the retailer's
store, especially in connection with demonstrations. Many progressive
grocers stimulate interest in their coffees by serving, on special
demonstration days, small cups of freshly brewed coffee, giving the
customer a small sample of the brand or blend used, to be taken home to
see if the same pleasing results can be obtained there also. Generally
this form of sampling, when properly conducted, has shown a larger
percentage of returns than any other method.

_Premium Method of Sales Promotion_

For many years, the premium method of sales promotion has been an
important factor in wholesale coffee merchandising, as well as in retail
distribution. The premium system has been characterized as a form of
advertising; and many coffee packers and wholesalers prefer to spend
their advertising appropriations in that way rather than in transitory
printed advertisements in newspapers and general magazines.

While certain forms of the system have been legislated out of existence
in some states, friends of the plan claim that it is a true
profit-sharing method which "blesses both him that gives and him that
takes"; and that i