In January 1990 Chase agreed to take on the product. In an even more unusual move, he agreed to serve as its account executive -- mostly because he liked ClearVue, O'Kane, and the challenge of launching a new, unknown product. The crusty 63-year-old chairman of a 230-employee company whose clients include the likes of Clorox and Coca-Cola Foods, Chase gave ClearVue crucial credibility. But before O'Kane could take advantage of his new clout, Chase insisted he redesign the hated package. Play on your name and your clear liquid, he advised. Get a bottle as clear as you can.
Back at Lawrence Plate Glass, that was not an easy sell. When O'Kane started getting estimates of about $20,000 for the package redesign from Boston design houses, the Demerses needed some serious convincing. Twenty thousand dollars, in one of the business's worst years ever, for a product that had never sold more than $62,000 a year?
So O'Kane -- persistent as usual -- found a small local ad agency that, for just $2,500, designed a new label with a distinctive black background and white lettering. And, in what O'Kane thinks of as his "Bartles and Jaymes" strategy, Walter Demers Jr. agreed to write copy for the back of the label (visible through the clear liquid) in which he recounted a folksy, nostalgic history of the product and emphasized the role of "my dad." The copy was illustrated with a photo of an ancient Lawrence Plate Glass truck. "We know you'll love our product and want to tell your friends all about it. You see, you are our ad agency," Demers wrote. To add to the appeal, O'Kane and the agency designed a cardboard attachment to hang from the neck of the new 20-ounce bottle, promising "NO STREAKS!" and guaranteeing customers their money back if they weren't satisfied.
In addition to overhauling the packaging, O'Kane and Berryan had to revamp their pricing. In the old days ClearVue had sold for $1.29 for a 16-ounce container (about 8¢ per ounce), while brand-name glass cleaners retailed in supermarkets typically range somewhere around $1.99 for 22 ounces (about 9¢ per ounce). When Berryan started seriously crunching the numbers, he realized the old price was too low. Chase, meanwhile, believed it was important that the product have "price parity" in order to get people to try it that first time.
At the same time, Chase expected supermarkets to demand a higher profit margin per bottle from a new, unknown item because they, in turn, would expect to move less volume. He suggested ClearVue wholesale for $17.40 a case -- less than the leading brands. That way supermarkets could get that higher margin without, he hoped, putting a higher price tag on the product. Because ClearVue's new bottle contained 20 ounces, while most of the leading brands came in 22-ounce bottles, ClearVue would still be a little more expensive per ounce, but Chase thought the difference was small enough that people would give it a try. However, there was no guarantee that grocers would go along with his request for price parity. They might think that the expected low volume of ClearVue sales called for even higher profit margins -- and thus higher retail prices as well.
As for slotting fees, Clear Vue was prepared to pay what it could, but that wasn't much. Again, O'Kane and Chase planned to make an emotional appeal as they negotiated for reduced fees: here was a young, local guy with a great product, trying to build a business against the odds.
As a final element to their strategy, Chase and O'Kane decided to advertise on talk radio when ClearVue debuted in an area. They needed to maximize every dollar of the $40,000 allocated for advertising and marketing expenses in the 1990 fiscal year. Talk radio was comparatively cheap: it cost about $75 per minute.
O'Kane and representatives from Chase Kolbin began meeting seriously with supermarket buyers in July 1990. Their aim: a rollout of the new package in time for the fall cleaning season. (Glass cleaner is a seasonal product. While most consumers buy it several times a year, the peak purchases occur near fall and spring.) In the next nine months, O'Kane reports, ClearVue got on the shelves of 1,000 New England supermarkets, and 1,000 more in New York and Pennsylvania. Among them was Stop & Shop, New England's largest chain.
By any estimate Clear Vue was quite successful at negotiating slotting rates. Richard Lane, senior vice-president of A. J. Funk & Co., which manufactures a midwestern glass cleaner called Sparkle, says a company introducing a new glass cleaner should count on paying hundreds of dollars per item per store in slotting fees and store promotional requirements. So far, ClearVue has gotten into 2,000 stores while allocating $100,000 to slotting fees and $10,000 to store promotions. That works out to a mere $55 per store.
How did O'Kane do it? Bob Monroe, the household-products buyer at Stop & Shop, remembers what appealed to him about the ClearVue approach. "In trying the product myself, I became a believer," he says. He also liked the packaging and, just as important, liked Brooks O'Kane. He was impressed with O'Kane's drive and his affiliation with Chase Kolbin, and was reassured by the customer following the letters demonstrated. So when it came to slotting fees, Monroe was, well, flexible. "He's certainly not being given a free ride," he says. "But for us to demand the same thing from him that we do from the big companies would be unfair and wouldn't be conducive to free enterprise."
