1960s WORK
0145 1001 Dri Foam
The product I was to manage at Cussons was interesting, This was not least because it became one of the most successful new product launches of the decade; although that was partly because we cannibalised the existing 1001 product business. Indeed, where 1001 had long been sustained by advertising jingle which went '1001 cleans a big, big carpet for just half a crown', I pushed the price to three shillings! The first thing I did however, was to put in place some more sophisticated research -- which was readily agreed by my boss, Hugh Goodwin -- and we started to do all the things that I did at Gallahers. In particular we used Kelly grids as the introduction to factor analysis. We planned to make use of the results from this later on.
One of the big problems with Dri Foam was that it was heavily seasonal. Something like half the sales went in a couple of months - at the beginning of spring – as housewives literally used it for the spring cleaning! To achieve this we used to manufacture it all the year-round, and store it in a warehouse on-site. This was expensive, but it was even more expensive if the forecast was wrong. If we set up the production target too high, we ended up with a warehouse full of stock and had to cut back on production. If we aimed too low, we had an empty warehouse and lost sales.
Incidentally, the warehouse was another of those consultancy problems. The warehouse had been significantly expanded on the basis of a very carefully crafted design by outside consultants. There were just two problems. The first one was that the aisles were three inches too narrow; so that the telescopic hoist on the forklift trucks used to whip backwards and forwards as the drivers tried to manoeuvre them into place -- and this cost an enormous amount in running repairs. The other was that there simply wasn't room in the yard for all the lorries to work, so we had to load them in the road outside. Fortunately, it was not a very busy road and the council did not prosecute us. But it was as well that they took no action, or we would have only had space for half our output.
I soon got to produce a new commercial, with a housewife shampooing the carpet and then throwing the curtains open to allow shaft of light to bring a sparkle to the carpet. Remember this was in the days when advertising on television was in black and white. I well remember the shoot. It was a very long day. I had to arrive there something like seven in the morning and we didn't leave until about two in the morning. The big problem wasn't the shots of our model, but was the close-up of the shampooer going forward on the carpet and then pulling back to lay a nice strip of foam. This one shot took us five hours!
I also remember the model, who was gorgeous. She had actually made the first chocolate commercial which was banned. I spent all day chatting her up in the hope of some reward, but - just as we were due to leave - the director minced across and said “Duckie I think I might know of another job for you”; and off they went hand-in-hand into the night!
As usual, in those days, there were a lot of promotions. My big one was with one of the women’s magazines, Woman's Own, in which we were to pack a sachet of our product along with an offer of shampooers at attractive prices. I ordered a large quantity of shampooers on the basis that this would be a major activity. Unfortunately, at the last-minute, our evil MD (X) cancelled the sample being put into the magazines and the editors moved our competition to the back pages! Of course we didn't shift half the number shampooers we had planned for; and X blamed me for this!
Indeed, I came head-to-head with X on the number of occasions. The most important of these was the outcome of our factor analysis. This showed that the last thing housewives had on their minds was 'deep cleaning' the carpet, which had been our previous slogan. Instead the immediate reward they experienced was a much brighter carpet when they shampooed. But we realised they could get this just by brushing water onto the carpet! Accordingly we came out with a new campaign which was about 'surface cleaning'. Instead of the deep cleaning, we suggested that housewives brushed the shampooer across much less vigorously - which of course they appreciated since deep cleaning was quite a heavy work - but they still got the bright colour emerging; it was only a function of the water on the fibres. We suggested that they should do this two to three times more frequently than they had previously. In this way we planned to make the process of carpet cleaning much more attractive to those housewives, and at the same time sell two to three times as much shampoo. It was not merely a trick, since it still cleaned the carpet and the housewives were much happier
On the other hand, X decided that, since it was not the technically best way of cleaning a carpet, he would not support it and the new campaign was cancelled. His view was that to promote anything which was not technically the best process was immoral. We were accordingly left with the previous campaign and the previous sales level. All my marketing skills were wasted.
It was at this time that a new carpet shampoo, was launched by Johnson & Johnson. They were, of course, one of the biggest multinationals and they were determined to get into the market. I decided to do exactly what I had done previously and blocked their launch at every stage. Accordingly I went to X and asked to double the budget. He prevaricated, and told me that I should go ahead without his signature; on my own authority. He never signed off the money, and I was sure that - had it failed - I would have been for the high jump. I would be the ideal scapegoat! In fact he was nowhere to be seeing during the marketing campaign. This suited me down to the ground, since I could at last get on with the proper marketing, but I knew very well what would have happened had the campaign not succeeded. Fortunately, not merely did it see off the new competitor product, but it actually increased our sales by more than enough to cover the extra cost of promotion. X said nothing, but when success was guaranteed he signed off the project. Later on, of course, he fired me anyway!
A much more fundamental problem came from elsewhere. One of our researchers showed me the new product in use. It was an aerosol which was sprayed onto the carpet. If a match was then applied to the foam it burnt! There was a particularly nice demonstration whereby you sprayed a circle of foam on the carpet, and in that case the flame went round and round the ring, never going out. Not merely was this dangerous, but it was actually in contravention of the petroleum acts. J&J had put the wrong propellant in the can. I immediately went to X and asked him to initiate a complaint with the relevant authorities, to get them to take the product off the market -- which was our genuine duty in order to save lives. It would also have made certain of killing the product. To my astonishment X refused to do this, since he said it was unfair to a fellow MD. I then went to one of the safety organisations and discreetly let them know -- and I have a horrible feeling they told X and that contributed to my demise later on.
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