Advertising

One of my favorite movies, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse, includes a quote with an interesting slant on advertising:

Jim Blandings, the father and an advertising executive, is sitting with his wife and two daughters at the breakfast table. His daughter, Joan, is sharing her teacher's opinion...

Joan Blandings: Miss Stellwagon says advertising is a basically parasitic profession.Jim Blandings: You don't say?Joan Blandings: Miss Stellwagon says advertising makes people who can't afford it, buy things they don't want, with money they haven't got.Jim Blandings: Oh she does, does she? Well perhaps your Miss Stellwagon is right. Perhaps I should quit this basically parasitic profession, which at the very moment is paying for your fancy tuition and those extra French lessons and that progressive summer camp - to say nothing of the very braces on your back teeth.

I would love to have a profession where people desparately needed my [advice, skills, talents] and I didn't need to advertise at all. My husband has been a general contractor for his entire career and he hasn't advertised once. We haven't always known what he was going to be doing six months down the road, but he has never been out of work. 

That being said, creating ads for my new website is a chance for me to exercise my creativity in a way that is so completely different from my normal writing that it becomes an exciting challenge. Google Ads is a fairly easy to use tool to work with. 

In addition, the focus of our website is to reincarnate old wood into something new and useful, while maintaining a sentimental legacy. When I think of the joy and happiness someone can derive from turning a piece of junk into something new and beautiful, I believe we are doing something worthwhile, all while helping people remember their heritage or ancestry.

Advertising is a necessary function of letting potential customers know we're here in the middle of the country willing and able to share what we know with the world. The Internet has made it possible for us to reach others on a global level, but good advertising separates us from the competition. We have something special. We just need to get the word out and do it well.

I don't want to influence people to buy from me who can't afford it. I want to share beautiful things with people who will appreciate the skill and talent required to create it. At the same time, most of the things I plan to sell have some kind of practical use. 

Perhaps it isn't so parasitical after all.