1960s WORK
0157 Brand Management at PST
Eventually, after my six months on the road selling to PST’s retailers, I joined the brand management team; as an assistant brand manager, very much learning the ropes. I was assistant brand manager on Delrosa, one of PST's biggest brands. This was a vitamin C drink for children, and especially babies.
The history of it was that, in the Second World War, there had been problem in that citrus fruit, which provided vitamin C, was in short supply. So when the government laboratories found that rosehips contained vitamin C, they sent schoolchildren out into the countryside collecting rosehips from the hedgerows. These were forwarded to PST where they were processed into syrup which contained vitamin C. If you think about it, the idea of giving rosehip syrup to small babies, especially where they had been picked from the hedgerows by schoolchildren, would be anathema to modern mothers who wanted everything hygienic for their children. But in the Second World War they had no alternative and a great tradition had been born. Production of rosehip syrup continued after the war ended, even when it was no longer needed. In fact, when I was a PST during the 1960s it was still obligatory for mothers to give it to their babies. PST's brand, Delrosa, was the brand leader by a long way; and was very profitable. Paradoxically, by that time artificial vitamin C had been created, and this was stuffed into the product by the barrow load; so it could have been any sort of syrup - the rosehips were maintained simply so that mothers were reassured that it was as good as ever!
Neville Teller was my brand manager and I learned an immense amount from him. I worked under him for a year or so, before he went off to become general manager of the Solicitors Law Society Stationery Company. Neville was particularly interested in the creative side of the promotional material, and taught me great deal about that. We produced a lot of display material, and Neville handled this from inception through to the finished product. We were involved in everything, even investigating the individual screen dots on the product’s label; with linen testers, the industry’s name for the small magnifying glasses we used, to our eyes.
Our main advertising medium was television and I well remember my first experience of making a television commercial. When I turned up at the studio door, filming was already under way. When the red light went out, I walked through the door and facing me was a brightly lit mother and child. As I turned to the right, however, I saw something like 40 people stacked up behind the camera. This was not just feather-bedding, for all these were needed. You needed the carpenter, for example, in case someone decided to move the scenery. Grips were needed to move the lights around. Indeed, the cameraman didn't operate the camera, but directed the lighting; deciding where the various floods and spots should go.
Brand managers ran all aspects of the brand, making certain that we had the correct stocks and developing the product itself. By the time I left the product contained more apple pectin than rose hips, and the vitamin C came entirely from the artificial content. This was one reason why I left, or was forced out, since I was threatening to whistle-blow. There was nothing wrong with putting in pectin in this way, but PST chose to falsify the label - so that the customers didn't realise what was happening. That was a crime, and is still a crime. But they thought that nobody could easily detect whether it was apple pectin or rosehips. But I reasoned that all that was required was for the authorities to ask for our production records to see exactly what was happening!
Rather strangely, even for a brand management operation, we were heavily involved in media buying. Usually this was left entirely to the agency. Thus, I had Bensons (our advertising agency for Delrosa) do the actual buying, but we had a meeting with them once a month in which they presented their media buying record. At that meeting it had become a tradition that we tore their work to shreds. It was an awful experience for the agency, since we usually knew better than them what was the best buy. I well remember the account director of Bensons, who was desperate to keep us happy, once coming in and saying that he had managed to get some Coronation Street spots; in those days Coronation Street spots had been worth their weight in gold -- since Coronation Street had by far the biggest audiences. Unfortunately, this was just at the time when BBC had launched Steptoe and Son and this had decimated the Coronation Street audiences -- and we had been desperately offloading all of our existing Coronation Street spots! We were very hard nosed, it was a very macho operation, and we really made the agency personnel squirm.
After Neville Teller left, for a few months I ran the brand; until another brand manager was promoted into the place. I was eventually moved to be brand manager on some small brands. Whatever the brand, the brand manager in PST was in an immensely powerful position, and needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I even got as far as ordering a new production line for Delrosa. We had been running out of supplies, and the production management were loathe to order the new line themselves. So I contacted our American superiors and got them to order one for me. Unfortunately, not long after this, sales dropped off and the second production line was not really needed!
On the advertising side, I had problems with the agency’s creative strategy. The idea of Delrosa advertising was that it was beautifully bright and hygienic. Remember mothers had to feed this to their young babies; so everything we showed in our television commercials was high key and beautifully sterile. The agency, unfortunately, hired a new creative head and, with his first storyboard, he tried to sell us the idea that we had to be much more basic. He wanted to use an Italian ‘earth mother’ to sell the product. Hence the storyboard showed an Italian earth mother with a bottle shoved into the mouth of the baby -- in what looked like a Naples tenement -- saying '...you wanta giva your baby Delrosa..' in an Italian accent. We were horrified, and told them to get rid of it. But once creative personnel have got a bee in their bonnet it is very difficult indeed to get it out again. Thus, they commissioned a pilot commercial -- which Bensons paid for themselves -- and again told us what a beautiful commercial it was. We patiently sat through this experimental commercial, but still thought it was rubbish and rejected it. To their horror, we ourselves eventually wrote a script based on our normal approach, and I even attended the casting sessions -- to make certain that no earth mother managed to crawl under the door! I even went onto the set and, having specified that all lighting should be high key, looked through the lens in every shot. Even then I was beaten into the ground, since what I couldn't see was the settings for the exposure. The end result was that the lighting had been set to low-key and it was as if we were looking into an Italian tenement. We had to scrap the commercial: and cut a new one from previous stock!
I was more successful in other respects. Beechams, having seen how profitable our brand was, set out to take us head on with their own product, which was based on jojoba beans. Beechams were a real threat, since in the UK they were a much bigger company. In classical style they decided to put it into two test towns in Yorkshire. Our idea, which became classical in later years, was to destroy the test market. Although our main advertising was on television, I whipped the agency into producing a new full-page press ad within a week; and we then had it running in every issue of the local papers. We flooded the area with salespeople, and display material. Worst of all, from Beechams point of view, we ran a permanent 12 for 10 promotion in these towns. At one stage almost half the output of our factory was going to these towns, though much of this was then sold on to elsewhere in the country! The net result, though, was that the Beechams test was absolutely useless. I later heard that its board meeting had cursed my name, since -- although they wanted to launch nationally -- they eventually decided that it was too risky. If you want to save your brand, this is the way to do it.
Indeed we were quite vicious towards our competition. There was another competitive product, made by small manufacturer, called Optrose. One of the main means of promotion, in those days, was through mother and baby clinics -- where we provided supplies of Delrosa to them to sell on to their mothers. Optrose had been buying into this business, simply by beating us on price. This was starting to hurt us in terms of brand share. So my boss met with the managing director of Optrose, in a discreet hotel off Heathrow, and quite simply told them that if they ever reached a 10 percent share that would be the day they went bankrupt! Even in those days this was illegal -- but fortunately I was not involved.
Indeed our promotional activities were very wide ranging. We used to produce packs for distribution of samples in these baby clinics. I even ran a newspaper, called Antenatal News, and I helped at least one leading journalist, Clare Rayner, on the way to her career with this and, when I talked to her about this 40 years later, she still remembered those happy days. I even became a record producer, producing an EP of nursery songs as part of a promotion.
While I remained the assistant brand manager on Delrosa, a new brand manager Bernard Nicholson eventually took over. Bernard was especially hard nosed, the sort of manager PST loved. He was very friendly with one of the other assistant brand managers and they had boozy evenings together -- again something which is essential in many companies. I remember Ray, this friend, coming in one morning and asking where had he been the previous evening -- which was a bit worrying as he had been driving! Not long after that he went on an even worse binge, when even he felt he was not safe to drive. Unfortunately, on taking the train back home, he fell off the platform and had to be rescued by the station staff before he was run over by the next train. Who says it is more dangerous driving? I last saw him on television being investigated by one of the watchdog programmes; and threatening the presenter with physical harm!
Anyway Bernard knew the game that was played in PST. We had a new product that was in test market, called Sparkling Spring. Essentially it was a fizzy powder based on Andrews Liver Salts, which was PST's main brand, which when put into water fizzed up to produce a fizzy drink. The difference in this case was that the laxative properties were removed and various vitamins were added along with an orange flavour. You put a spoonful in a glass, added water and it miraculously fizzed up into a lovely orange drink which was good for you. There were great hopes, for it had sold well into test market, and all the retail audits were showing good results. Bernard well knew that you made your reputation in PST by launching successful new brands and he was preparing for a massive national launch.
Unfortunately, just before the launch was due to be finalised, two things happened. One was that the sales nose dived. It turned out that the product was something of a gimmick; women bought the product to see how it worked - and having seen its effect didn't bother to buy it again. Something similar was the fate experienced in the US by equivalent of Signal toothpaste; where people bought the product to see how the stripes were produced -- and never bought again -- whereas in the UK the stripes were used as a means of demonstrating the extra ingredient and the product continued to be successful. Anyway, whatever the reason, sales of Sparkling Spring were nose diving!
Even worse, though, the product was unstable and actually going mouldy in the jars! I presented this information to Bernard, which perhaps I should have thought twice about, since Bernard had me moved sideways -- and proceeded to launch the product anyway. He must have known that the cost to PST would be hundreds of thousands of pounds, but he did it anyway. He was right. He was promoted to marketing manager and the poor guy who came in to take over the brand was fired a few months later when the national sales did nose dive and the product went bad in the jars!
Having been pushed sideways, I moved on to actually become a full brand manager, on some smaller brands. Thus I had Philips toothpaste, which just after the Second World War had been brand leader. But it had long been in decline and was on its last legs. More important I had Milpar. This was Milk of Magnesia -- the other main brand of PST -- but mixed with paraffin and largely sold through hospitals. It was, needless to say, a very effective laxative. I did make my mark on this. I changed the pack labels, making them much cleaner. I even tested a TV commercial -- which was one the best I have ever seen. For once the agency ignored my brief, but produced such a good storyboard that I gave the go-ahead anyway. Unfortunately it was only run test market. I also visited hospitals, which was unusual even for a brand manager.
Matters came to head when, I later learned, I had applied my own job. I was looking around for a job on a more important brand elsewhere, when I applied to a box number. I never did that again, for it turned that PST was the firm looking for new brand managers -- and it didn't appreciate my own application. Thus was I fired for the first time in my career!
It was terrible experience. I remember going home and collapsing. My future was destroyed -- at least I thought it was at the time. That night I had to sleep in Pat's arms and even though we had single beds at the time.
As one final example of dubious management decisions, this time in terms of the futility of bringing the law into business, Milk of Magnesia was owned (under the PST umbrella), by 'Charles Philips'; as was proudly claimed on the label bottle. However, Philips Eindhoven also wanted to brand their own pharmaceuticals operation under the Philips name. The argument about the copyright had been going on for more than ten years when I arrived. The legal battle had cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and the lawyers on both sides were still fighting it. Soon after I arrived, however, the name Charles Philips was removed from the Milk of Magnesia label and the product became an ordinary PST product; but that didn't stop lawyers from fighting on, as the battle continued unabated!
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