Add-q'R.oom Compoign Builds Added Decrler Scrles

The nation-wide Add-A-Room campaign spearheaded by the Gypsum Association is moving ahead this year at a sharply stepped-up pace, according to Lloyd H. Yeager, general manager of the association.

Spurred by the continuing "baby boom" and other factors, the gypsum producers group, Yeager said, plans to reach an even larger audience of prospective Add-A-Roomers through its tg55 publicity and promotional program than it did last year, rvhen the campaign was launcl-red.

To further stimulate the multi-billion dollar home-improvement market, he reported, top national magazines with a coinbined circulaiton of over 50 million are car- rying illustrated Add-A-Room features. With regard to bther media, the gypsum of;ficial said that "the flood of Add-A-Room newspaper and radio-TV publicity this year rvill even exceed that in 1954, when the Add-A-Room campaign was publicized by 1,400 newspapers with a total circulation of 60 million and by hundreds of radio and TV stations from coast to coast."

To help the nation's building materials dealers get as large a share as possible of the growing Add-A-Room market, many of the. individual gypsum manufacturers are carrying on special merchandising programs at the dealer level. At the same time, the association is alerting the dealers to major publicity breaks on which they should capitalize, and is urging them to:

1. Establish their place of business as an Add-A-Room headquarters with truck signs, posters, displays, direct mail, literature, etc.

2. Feature the Add-A-Room theme in their advertising.

3. Team up with local contractors, electricians, plumbers, etc., to close prospects.

4. Be prepared to give advice on financing methods and loan sources.

The home-improvement market, Yeager pointed out, has shown a spectacular growth in recent years, with the national expenditure for home repairs and alterations rapidly approaching the total spent for entirely new home building.

He cited, for exa'qrple, a Bureau of Census study which indicates that homeowners are currently spending $10 billion a year in the fix-up market.

This, he noted, is nearly as much as is now being spent in the United States each year for all ner,v automobiles, busses and trucks, and is already fairly close to the anticipated outlay of about $12 billion a year for new homes during the next decade.

Yeager also called special attention to the millions of Add-A-Room prospects rvhich are now available, and the many millions more rvhich are being created, due to the steady increase in family formations.

"The proportion of married people in our population today," he observed, "is the greatest in history, and our yoltng adults are marrying at an earlier age than ever before. What is even more to the point, young Mr. and

Mrs. America are having more children than their parents, with middle-class families now approaching a new norm of three or four children. As for the birth rate in general, it is apparent that the so-called 'baby boom,' which started in 1940, continues to be one of the most significant forces in our economic life. Thus, for example, the number of births in the nation last year reached the total of 4,100,000an all-time high."

Just as important to the Add-A-Room market as the rising birth rate, Yeager emphasized, is the marked increase in owner-occupied homes from 44o/o in 1940 to 55o/o in 1954.

"Most of these nerv homeowners," he pointed out, ,,have growing families, and a great many of the new homes they have bought are of the expandable type-with an attic that can be finished off, a breezeway carport, or porch that can be converted into living space, or a basement that can be made into a recreation room. When the new homes they have bought are older ones, these nsur young homeowners are, in many cases, likewise facecl with the necessity of expanding their living quarters rvhen nerv children come along or the younger ones grow up."

It is because of all these factors, Yeager declared, that the gypsum manufacturers are "convinced that various segments of the building industry should push ahead with a'large-scale publicity and promotional program aimed at the vast multi-billion dollar Add-A-Room market."

Building permits for the month of September in Orange, Calif., \,vere more than $1,600,000.

Pendaroah

Among those attending the Western Pine Association September convention in Portland were these northern Californians: P. V. Burke, president, Sacramento Box & Lumber Co. ; L. J. Carr, Sacramento; Marshall Schmidt, sales manager, L. J. Carr & Company, and Eric Engstrom, general manager of Sacramento Box & Lumber Company.

Harry Merlo, sales manager of Rounds Lumber Company, San Francisco, left on a three-week business trip to the east October 9. Besides visiting the Rounds Lumber Company offices in Dallas and Wichita, he will be calling on Rounds' accounts throughout the southeast and eastern states.

Horace Wolfe, president of Marquart-Wolfe Lumber Co', Los Angeles, returned this week from the middle west, where he attended the Sash and Door Jobbers meeting in Chicago. Following the close of the convention at the Edgewater Beach hotel in the Windy City, he visited Oshkosh, Wis-, and Cleveland, Ohio. While in Cleveland he attended the NRLDA convention.

Bob Neiman, partner in the Neiman-Reed retail concern, Van Nuys, California, returned the first of this month following a three-week stay in Portland, eastern Oregon and northdrn California. While away he called on various suppliers of lumber and allied products, visited with friends and business associates, and fished.

Ray Dunbar, buyer for Hedlund Lumber Sales, Inc., has moved from Sacramento to Redding to facilitate his buying operations. He now maintains headquarters at 2886 East Way in Redding.

Sel Sharp, Z7-year man with the California Redwood Association, returned to San Francisco October 3 after spending a week in Chicago on association business.

John Sampson, head man of Sampson Company, Pasadena, is shopping for another cruiser. He recently sold his yacht at Lake Mead, where he spends most of his free time fishing.

R. S. Youngberg, manager of American Sisalkraft Co., San Francisco branch, returned to the city September ?-5 after attending a management meeting at the New York City office for two weeks.

Paul McCusker, well-known San Francisco wholesale lumberman, spent the third week of September calling on mill connections in Portland and other parts of Oregon.

Bob Leishman, A. L. Hoover Co., San Marino, spent several weeks during September and October at Scotia, California, mills on a combined business and vacation trip. He is expected back in southern California about the middle of this month.

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The California Redwood Association welcomed Ben Allen back into the fold October 3. Ben had been having quite a tussle rvith some belligerent bugs, but he showed them who was boss.

Phil Gosslin, head man of Gosslin-Harding Lumber Co., Walnut Creek, visited northern California mill connections during the first week of October.

Carvel Brown, manager of Orban Lumber Co., Pasadena, returned last month from a combined business and pleasure trip which he spent in the northern California mill country.

Fred Windeler, George Windeler Company, Ltd., and Mrs. Windelern are in the east, where Fred will be taking in the National Wood Tank Institute meeting at Buffalo, New York, October 20-22. The Windelers left San Francisco on their combined vacation-business trip October 4, and traveled east via the Canadian route.

Bob Erickson, who has been with the Kline Lumber Co. at Westminster, is now in the wholesale order department of Consolidated Lumber Co. at Wilmington.

Matt Ryan, Hedlund Lumber Sales, Inc., Sacramento, announces that Marion Snead, Hedlund's San Joaquin VaL ley man, has moved his base of operations from Modesto to Fresno in order to maintain a better coverage of the San Joaquin Valley area. Snead may no\v be reached at