Deejays' Chatter Brightens Tub Cleanser's Prospects

Paul C. Porter of Automation Inc. needed to advertise his cutting-edge cleanser but lacked the capital to compete with giants like Clorox. His savior: radio commercials.

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FieldNotes: Upstarts

Deejays' Chatter Brightens Tub Cleanser's Prospects

COMPANY: Automation Inc.

HEADQUARTERS: Jacksonville, Fla.

TYPE OF BUSINESS: Household consumer-product manufacturer

CAPITAL: $4 million in private equity

KEY COMPETITION: The Clorox Co., Dow Chemical Co., Procter & Gamble Co.

COMPETITIVE EDGE: A unique product, an innovative radio campaign

In 1995, Paul C. Porter had a vision: he pictured a plastic bottle of Clean Shower, with its blue-and-yellow label, in every bathroom in the United States. The cutting-edge cleanser ("biodegradable...never scrub your shower again," the label promises) removes soap scum, hard-water deposits, and mildew stains from tubs and shower walls. "I knew this was an incredible product that would take over the shower-cleaning industry," says Porter, chief operating officer and vice-president of Automation Inc., Clean Shower's manufacturer.

Not that Clean Shower had the market to itself. On the contrary, it had to compete against household names like the Clorox Co.'s Tilex Soap Scum Remover and Dow Chemical Co.'s Dow Bathroom Cleaner. To enter such a national market with a new household consumer product is costly, to say the least, averaging $10 million to $20 million mostly for TV, newspaper, and other advertising.

Porter salivated at the prospects of a nationwide TV campaign, but he had to discard that option. TV alone would have consumed at least $5 million. It would have busted the company's $1-million annual budget, quickly chewing through the $700,000 earmarked for advertising. Print advertising he also rejected; it lacked TV's dramatic punch.

That left radio, which offers some of the power of television at a far lower cost. Still, radio looked like a high-risk proposition. "In this day and age," says Jack Neff, a correspondent for Advertising Age, "it's unusual to roll out a national consumer product primarily by using radio." Porter nonetheless decided to do just that.

But he resolved to do it his way. At six foot three and 225 pounds, the gravelly voiced Porter, a 47-year-old Harvard M.B.A. who joined Automation in May 1995, has much the same effect on people as a locomotive coming down the tracks does.

First, Porter ruled out prerecorded commercials as canned and lifeless. Second, he determined that paid, ad-libbed testimonials from disc jockeys would resonate best with consumers. He might have shipped samples by mail, but instead Porter hand-delivered bottles of Clean Shower to deejays, along with a booklet of advertising tips.

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