In this moment of darkness, Beaver turned to what would surely have been anyone's obvious first choice -- Mary Kay Cosmetics Inc. He had just finished reading a book about the company and its direct-sales methods and came away with nes hope. In the summer of 1985, he hired seven Penn State students to sell pigs directly on a straight commission of $10 per box, further sweetened by a $2,000 stereo outfit to the top producer and a $500 cash award for second-place volume. "I thought we could be the Mary Kay of industry," Beaver says, "and have these cute people calling on these grisly manufacturing guys."
To support his sales force, every week Beaver sent out information mailers to companies within each sales territory. All in all, it was a standard approach to direct sales, but his mailers were not. They were inspired. First, because he wanted to reach buyers "who were actually pushing the broom," Beaver sent his mailers to so-called "facilities managers" -- people like Fred Beers -- rather than to company presidents, plant managers, and other executives. Second, he told his prospects that if they were unhappy with the pigs, they did not have to pay for them. "Now that was a good idea," Beaver says. "You don't hear that offer when it comes to industrial supplies. That was the way we overcame FUD -- you know, fear, uncertainty, and doubt."
Before long, a steady stream of mailers arrived back in Altoona, returned with orders scribbled on the bottom of the flyers. For Beaver, it was conclusive proof that he had been right all along, and that pigs could be sold successfully by direct mail. Personal sales calls were both unwanted and unnecessary. In September alone, 3,000 mailers had produced 100 responses and $10,000 in sales.
So, after an end-of-the-summer ceremony in which Beaver presented the stereo and cash award he had promised, he sent the Mary Kay team back to school. In its place, he organized a direct-mail effort that today spends about $120,000 per month to mail out 300,000 pieces. And in the process, Beaver has received an unexpected dividend. Not only do customers appear pleased with the product itself, but the very idea that it is possible to order something actually called a pig also seems to have touched a large and very sensitive funny bone. Time and again, people call up the pig's toll-free number -- the numerical equivalent of HOT-HOGS -- and insist on speaking to "Miss Piggy" or to "Boss Hogg," or they include notes on their order forms to say that the pigs are doing a great job because they "ate all the slop" or that they work fine "until they get loose and we can't round them up."
Scattered throughout New Pig's offices are all manner of pig doodads and geegaws, including smiling pig statues in pink porcelain and pudgy pig dolls in paisley prints. On one office wall there is a poster in vivid color showing a winged pig flying over a rainbow, on which is written the words "rise above the ordinary." The poster is a fairly accurate illustration of Beaver's current state of mind.
Not everyone, however, would find the flying pig so amusing. Richard M. Jaffee, for one. Jaffee is president of Oil-Dri Corporation of America, a publicly held corporation with $53 million in sales last year and recognized as the largest producer of clay industrial absorbents. Jaffee says he resents Beaver's repeated references to his product as "clay chips" rather than the more refined "mineral absorbent." He also resents Beaver's constant refrain about the pig's superior absorbency as a selective distortion of benefits that -- according to Jaffe -- fails to note some of clay's other important attributes, among them that clay "creates a safe, nonskid carpet for employees," while pigs do not. And finally, as an aside, Jaffee, a past president of the Sorptive Minerals Institute, a trade association of eight companies, wonders why Beaver gets so worked up over this market anyway. Bad enough that it is "very mature," he says, but worse yet that sales of industrial absorbents "deteriorated markedly" after 1979.
"I think the pig idea has a place," concedes Jaffee, adding ominously, "but it has a limited number of applications in specialty uses, and it would not be a replacement for clay in broad use."
Poor Don Beaver, down there in Altoona, toying with his pig dolls, hanging nonsense posters, stuffing mashed-up corn cobs into pink socks.
He does not know his market is supposed to be limited. He does not know that pigs are not supposed to fly.
Somebody ought to tell him. It's about time he got his facts straight, started listening to the voices of reason and orthodoxy.
Aah, what the hell, it probably wouldn't make a difference anyway. You know Beaver. He'll only smile and recite the meaningful groper's anthem.
"We never said we were smart," Beaver will say. "We just try lots of different things."
