Creating Desire by Advertising

'When your aim is to separate a man from his CA'SU ty giving him ill exchange for the cash those commodities that you have for sale, then ADVERTISING must lose everything of the haphazard, and must go down to the business of functioning intelligently and forcefully. Just fiIling space with black and white won't clo it.

You go out after that sort of advertising copy with every bit of ingenuity in your niake-up keyecl up to get RESIIIJTS.

FIRST, you must create a DESIRE for the article you want to sell.

As many changes are run in on that desire as the nature of the article and the ingenuity of the writer can produce.

The UTII-IITY, the FUNCTION of that artiele, are played up in every possible marlner, until the DESIRE X'OR, POSSESSION oyerpowers the DESIRE TO KEEP THE MONEY; and the AMOUNT of money is really seeondary.

Now THAT method of advertising is fundamental. It applies whether the article for sale is phonographs, fountain pens, land, or building materials. Ancl the same success will be secured by the nakers or dealers of any commodity -our own includecl-just so long as the X'UNCTION is advertised instead of the THING ITSEIJF.

No one buys anything for the mere sake of HAVING IT. It is NOT the possession of the article that gives the benefft that alone can be the excuse for a sale-the exchange ol money for article.

The only reason we value MONEY is for what it can DO. A dollar in the pocket is without value; its sole worth lies in the fact that it can be exchanged. for something of benefit to YOU. It may be urged that its mere possession is of value, but that is begging the question, for that POSSESSION is of value oirly because of its latent power of purchase, and not at all TIIROUGH the possession.

Yet 'nany people fail to realize the difrerenee between MERE POSSESSION and BENEFICIAIT USE.

Antl the lumber industry is just beginning to find out what it has really leen trying to sell for a generation, namely, the FUNCTIONS of those buildings that can be erected. with their materials. Yet we continue in large measure to say ttlumbert' when we mean "protection,t' and. trshingles" when we mean a roof.

And the .fact that what our customers want is PROTECTION, and what we have so Iong ofrered them is simply the RAW MATERIAIJS from which this protection may be secured. when properly placed together in a certain form, has always been one of the drag-anehors of the lumber business.

IIIMBER-or rather the things that lumber will DO-is but one of the many things the FARMER, wants, for ingtance. 'W'e naturally think that the farmer should spend his ictle monents figuring on new buiklings he might ereat; but remember that Mr. Farmer of today reads a lot of papers and a lot of advertisements written by men who know HOW TO APPEAI TO HIM, and they are constantly .making HIM-as weII as US-want the things THEY have to sell.

So when we write advertisements to secure the DESIRE on the part of the Jarmer that is greater than the DESIBE

TO KEEP IIIS MONEY, and. greater than the DESIRE TO BITT THE OTIIER, THINGS HE SEES ADVER,TISED EVERY DAY, you can't just trust to luck that it will be IilGIIT.

Those other fellows talk phonographs, and motor cars, and farm appliances and conveniences, and pianos, and glad rags, and kitchen cabinets, and pool tables, and books, and a thousand. other things that the average farmer WOIIITD LIKE TO IIAVE; and they talk THE BENEFIT THOSE THINGS WOIILD BE TO IIIM so strongly and so clearly and. so consistently and continuously, that the mere item of the cost of a raw material is of little intepest,.to him.

The greatest appeal that the builcling ad writer can make is based on the grounds of the I'IINCTION OF TEE BUIL,DING SUGGESTED.

A.d goods sdld und.er this sort of an appeal are likely to STAY SOL,D and will create a desire for other goods sold under like appeal, thus tending to build up a PERMANENT TR,ADE.