Opportunity Knocks at the DoorAdvertising Sells It

A Five Year Drive by the Wheeler, Osgood Company Boost Sale of F'ir Doors

Ftom

"Pdatet fak"

The Wheeler, Osgood Company claims to be the world's largest manufacturer of doors. The company's plant turned out 1,000,000 doors in 1922 and, is now prepared to manufacture on a one-shift basis 1,500,000 doors a year.

The business was established in 1889. It was at first a shop devoted to production for local consumption of sash, doors and millwork. In 1893, T. E. Ripley, who had joined the organization a year after it started made a veniuresome trip into the MiddleWestand got together orders from twenty dealers to make possible the first pooled car shipment. It is claimed that this first carload passed en route the last car of Eastern doors to be sent to the Pacific Coast.

When cedar for doors seemed no longer a practical wood due to its growing scarcity in the grades suitable for doors, the Wheeler, Osgood Company pioneered in the manufacture of doors from lir. In 1911 it introduced the threeply veneer panel. Electrification of the mill followed the war and in 1919 the company went into exclusive production of doors and sash, which is now expected to be its permanent operating policy.

A logical next step was the trade-marking of the product and this was followed by a determination to advertise the doors nationally.

"Hereafter, every door we make will be trade-marked and will bear a concise, definite guarantee," said George J. Osgood, vice-president of the company. "Our distributors and dealers are authorized to back up this guarantee. As a final step, we are inaugurating a policy of national consum,er advertising that, during t924, will carry the message of Laminex and Woco doors to approximately 10,000,000 people."

The company has advertised for some years in lumber trade journals, but the campaign now starting isits first attempt to sell doors and sash nationally to the consumer through advertising.

Coincidental with the start of consumer advertising, the company adopted a new trade-mark name for its c,hief product, veneer doors, the name being Laminex. Laminex is to be the leader in the family of Woco products, the Woco line including doors made without the use of veneer, and sash. The drive is on Laminex which lends itself to an interesting advertising story.

In selecting the name, the company aimed to convey the impression thatthe doors were of ply construction, but wanted to get away from any suggestion of veneer. The word "veneer," to the layman, suggests an overlay of expensive lumber over a core of inferior material. Housewives believe, for example, that, since solid mahogany is more expensive than mahogany veneer, it must be superior,