Grade-Marlced Lumber Advertising Campaign

Kenneth Smith, secretary of the Lumber & Al.lied Products Institute of Los Angeles, in a bulletin to the members under date of April 17 discusses the grade-marked lumber advertising campaign. On April 1, members representing more than 80 per cent of the volume in the area embraced by the Institute adopted the policy of selling and delivering only grade-marked Douglas fir in the Common grades, No. 4 to Select Structural. inclusive. In the bulletin Secretary Smith says:

"This started last Sunday with ads in the Los Angeles Times and Examiner. In case you did not see either paper, we enclose a copy of the page from the Times on which our ad appeared.

"If you did see the Building Section of these papers, you will know that the Times particularly went out of its way to give our campaign a boost incidental to the campaign they are willing to wage against jerry building returning to the picture in Los Angeles. In addition, they are being not only aided but urged on by the Associated General Contractors.

"The next ad will appear in the Times on Sunday. There will also be another editorial boost for it. For the time being, we are using only the Times and the Examiner on Sunday, but the Committee feels that it would be advisable to push the campaign a little faster in the first stages, and we expect to supplement this with some smaller ads in between with, possibly, also something in the Herald. It is not possible, of course, to spread out too far or all of the ads would be too small to attract attention.

"We have sent letters and a copy of the ad used last Sunday to some 200 leading architects and engineers. We have also written to all of the banks and are in the process of writing further lending institutions as fast as .we can learn their names. In addition to letters, each of the lending institutions will receive a personal call either from a member of our staff or from a representative of.the West Coast Lumbermen's Association.

"This whole advertising campaign is based upon just selling two ideas to the buying public: (1) That plenty of good lumber is available and that the right grade for the use intended can be readily ascertained 1 and, (2) that it is not necessary to be an expert lumber grader in order to be sure of getting exactly the grade purchased. The third essential is that the dealers stick one hundred per cent on the program of not selling unmarked lumber so that the unethical contractors will not have an opportunity to gyp the owner and lay the blame on the lumber industry."

Bay District Visitor

Frank Sparling, manager of the Homer T. Hayward Lumber Company's yard at Hollister, was a recent visitor to the San Francisco Bay district.

Makes New Connection

W. J. Pope, formerly sales manager of Sunset Lumber Co., Oakland, is now associated with Sam Humphrey in the wholesale lumber business in Oakland.

Carefulness

Orders large and small receive the careful attention of an alerg wide-awake organization when you intfust them to