She may not have the resources of her giant competitors, but Amilya Antonetti is making her own mark in the soap business, one customer at a time.
Bootstrap marketing
Amilya Antonetti is making her own mark in the soap business, one customer at a time
When Amilya Antonetti began to talk seriously about breaking into the $4.7-billion U.S. laundry-detergent market, in 1994, industry veterans told her she had to be joking. "They all laughed hysterically," Antonetti recalls. "They'd say, 'Honey, have you ever heard of Clorox? Have you ever heard of Tide? There's no place for you here." Time and again, buyers for grocery stores told Antonetti that none of their customers would be interested in the hypoallergenic cleansing products she began developing after learning that her infant son's health problems were aggravated by the chemicals in standard brands. After one such conversation Antonetti came close to admitting defeat. Then she did an about-face, marched right back into the guy's office, and declared, "I have one more thing to say to you: I am your customer."
Convinced that there were others out there like her, Antonetti did her own market research by haunting grocery-store aisles. She spent loads of time talking with female shoppers, she says, "asking and asking and asking, What is it here that's missing?" She persuaded a retired soap buyer for Safeway to put her in touch with formulators. Then in late 1995 she and her lawyer husband, Dennis Karp, sold their home, secured $120,000 in loans from the Small Business Administration, and set up shop as SoapWorks in northern California's San Leandro.
It's been a long haul, but five years later, grocery-store buyers are no longer laughing. Antonetti now has shelf space in 2,500 stores from California to Florida. She generated revenues of $5 million in 1999. And she owes her success to the very customers that grocery-store buyers claimed did not exist. "There was very clearly a niche that was not being served," says Antonetti, who has boldly enlisted would-be customers in her sales effort. "If a mom comes in here and asks, 'Why are you not at my store?' I tell her, 'Look, your store already knows about me. I've already talked with every major chain. If you want us to be in your store, you need to talk to your store manager."
That's just what happened with Joellen Sutterfield, a fashion-industry executive who credits SoapWorks products with reducing the skin rashes she has suffered all her life. Sutterfield boasts that she hectored Safeway store managers for more than a year before they placed their first $50,000 SoapWorks order, in April. "Now," Sutterfield says, "I'm working on the manager at the Whole Foods Market in San Ramon."
At Trader Joe's, SoapWorks has found a "cult following," says product manager Annette Davidson. A SoapWorks customer herself, Davidson says store managers at the 131-store chain reported such "huge demand" from customers that she decided to stock an expanded product line. Indeed, Antonetti's customers have become such apostles for SoapWorks, it's as if she's mixed a marketing ingredient into her formula.
But the secret to SoapWorks' customer-driven marketing scheme isn't solely in the suds. What really makes it work is Antonetti's demonstrated allegiance to her customers, who are smitten as much by what SoapWorks stands for as by what's inside the bottle.
Amilya Antonetti deliberately aligned herself with the market, presenting herself as equal parts mom and CEO.
Under heavy cloud cover on an early morning this spring San Leandro seems like a small town stuck in time. Railcars and truck trailers are scattered like massive jacks around warehouses loaded with iron and metal supplies, welding materials, marble, and stone. Amid this industrial sprawl, SoapWorks is not an immediate standout. Stepping inside the start-up's offices, though, a visitor is swept up into a supercharged atmosphere. The energy epicenter: 33-year-old Antonetti.
Having started her day with a solitary predawn yoga session, Antonetti is in high gear, rattling off a long list of amusements she intends to bring in for a fair in the parking lot behind the building. It's going to be a back-to-school bash, and Antonetti is inviting all San Leandro's young families. She's also enlisting as her cosponsors the local chamber of commerce, the public library, and San Leandro's boys' and girls' club, which will help cover the costs of fun stuff like moon bouncers, balloon twisters, and a petting zoo. A producer and an executive from San Francisco-based talk-radio station KFAX scribble furiously, trying to keep up. "I already talked with the mayor," Antonetti says, her electric blue eyes flashing. "She will definitely be here."
The KFAX collaboration -- by far SoapWorks' biggest media event ever -- illustrates how Antonetti has deftly deployed modest advertising dollars to generate positive consumer reaction and thereby expand her market reach. It all began back in 1998, when KFAX senior advertising consultant Caroline Stevens saw a little $75 ad in a local parents' magazine. Because the ad touted SoapWorks as a company created for moms by a mom, Stevens sensed that Antonetti might want to tell her story to listeners at the family-oriented station. Granted, in keeping with KFAX business policies, Antonetti would have to buy airtime at about $2,500 for the first three months and $4,000 for the six months thereafter.
Antonetti seized the opportunity to speak directly to KFAX's 250,000 weekly listeners. Instead of having a station announcer present her advertising message, Antonetti insisted that she do it herself. "I have a pretty good radio voice," she says. As she has done in all her marketing, Antonetti deliberately aligned herself with the SoapWorks market, presenting herself as equal parts mom and CEO.
