Originally published in Canadian Grocer Magazine.
Make them convenient to buy, convenient to use, and more effective than ever. That’s what Canadians want from today’s household cleaning products.
“Consumers are looking for convenient products that will save them time and effort without sacrificing performance,” says Joyce Law, PR Manager at Proctor & Gamble. “(They) don’t want to spend an entire Saturday cleaning, they want to be able to do quick but thorough clean-ups during the week.”
“Most people hate cleaning but they love cleanliness,” says Paul Bedard, Brand Trade Manager at Unilever Canada. Noting the popularity of home renovation TV programs, Bedard says that people “actually view the home as an extension of who they are.”
Recent decorating styles shown on such shows include new flooring materials, stainless steel appliances, and chrome fixtures, faucets, and so forth. “People aren’t sure how to clean stainless steel,” says Bedard, so Unilever recently launched Vim Gel with baking soda to address this trend.
Vince Tortorici, manager at Longo Brothers Fruit Markets Inc. in Markham, Ontario, notes that dish soap is becoming outdated. “It’s all crystals or gel or tablets. Everything is geared towards the dishwasher as opposed to hand dishwashing.” National ACNielsen category numbers for the 52 weeks ended September 3, 2005, confirm Tortorici’s comments. Although still sizeable at $97,326,018, dollar sales of dishwashing liquids and wipes slipped 3%. Kiem Ho, Dial Canada Brand Manager, agrees with Tortorici. With the rise of dual income families, people “have more money but don’t necessarily cook more. People can easily go out with more disposable income and buy meals, so you don’t have to worry about the dishes as much.”
“Down east, the price tag does a lot of dictating,” says Randy Moffat, manager at Valu Foods of Petitcodiac, New Brunswick, who works with manufacturers to create strip-clip coupons. He also acknowledges the power of trade names. “You still have your brands that have been around for years, your Sunlights and your Cascades, things like that, that seem to be more popular than some of the newer ones,” Moffat says.
Both Moffat and Tortorici respect the power of advertising. Tortorici claims: “Whatever’s advertised on TV is in the forefront of the consumer’s mind.”
Tortorici observes consumers when they shop for household cleaners, dollar sales of which rose two percent to $118,952,727: ”You can walk into this section and you’re just overwhelmed.”
Bedard sees a marketing opportunity here. “The easier that you can make it to shop the category, the easier it is for consumers to make that purchase decision and move on,” he notes.
Christine Speagle, Brand Manager for Sara Lee Household & Body Care (Canada) adds another view. “Increased competitive activity is necessary to hold the consumer’s interest in a category, as well as attracting new consumers,” she says.
Bedard mentions several ways to lessen the confusion that springs from a plethora of product choices. Speaking of the success of trigger sprays and wipes, “the consumer looks for one product that fits all their needs,” Bedard says. During spring-cleaning events, “we have display vehicles that communicate which products to use for what purposes.
Clarification is crucial when launching new products. During the January 2005 launch of the Clorox Bleach Pen, in-store kiosks offered demonstrations of the novel package. Clorox markets this double-ended tool as a felt-tip pen for delivering bleach to a specific area and as a “scrubby-brush” tool for larger stains, according to Sunita Kurban, Category and Consumer Insights Manager for The Clorox Company of Canada.
However, Clorox wants consumers to use this product for more than just cleaning clothes. Inside the home, the pen can be used on tiles and grout, as well as laundry. Perhaps most innovative is a promotion with Wal-Mart, which distributed a back-to-school booklet containing stencils that encourages children to decorate their clothes, shoes, bags, and so forth using the bleach pen.
Such products propelled the relatively small market for pre-wash products to a 20% gain in dollar sales, for a total of $28,191,589. Second in percentage market gains were bathroom cleaners, up 17% to finish the year at $53,979,595.
While marketers extol the virtues of in-store displays and kiosks to promote cleaning products, store managers are wary of anything that blocks their customers’ path. Moffat’s store measures 7,000 square feet, so he looks for other in-store solutions. “We deal with a company that does floor stickers that go in front of certain products which people walk across as they’re shopping,” he says. “It gets their attention.” Moffat also likes flashing coupon holders on shelves.
(Sara Lee’s innovative packaging may appeal to Moffat. Speagle notes that newer cartons sit either horizontally or vertically, so store owners can manage shelf space more easily.)
Clarification matters for other reasons too. Ho recalls the 2004 shortage of flu vaccines in the US and notes current media coverage of avian flu. “How do you better take care of your family, especially since the consumer has less and less time to do so?” Ho asks. The Clorox web site touts the Toilet Wand, featuring a disposable head, with these words: “when you’re done you can toss the ick away for good!” Such innovation helps to account for the 5% advance in toilet bowl cleaner dollar sales, to $44,970,727.
Tortorici concurs. “Disposable is definitely the way to go. People are definitely conscious about the level of bacteria.” As another example, he mentions the Swiffer: “Put a J-cloth on the end of a broom. When you finish, throw the J-Cloth out. You keep your broom handle but not the actual cleaning element.”
Fragrances are also the way to go. Lemon outsells all other furniture care fragrances two to one, according to Speagle. When speaking of the scent in Endust, Speagle says it provides “a cleaning signal to loyal Endust users to remind them that they’ve cleaned.”
To explain the rising popularity of Dial’s air fresheners, Ho says they help “cover up the essential cleaning that people skip sometimes. Scent is a sign of clean.”
Quantity purchases often convince consumers that they’ve been frugal. “For some reason, the consumer (thinks) ‘I have to buy in bulk to save (on non-food items)’,” says Tortorici. “I do a lot of customer carry-outs… and when they open their trunk, boom, there’s the 40-roll pack of toilet paper.”
Like toilet paper, the staples in this category, namely laundry detergents and fabric softeners, continue to sell well. While sales of both remained stable, these two products combined make up more than 50% of sales of all household-cleaning products. Packaged laundry product sales totalled $470,638,812 and fabric softener sales came in at $184,209,004.
Tortorici sees opportunities with these products. “It seems like you always have a laundry detergent on sale. If you can tie (fabric softener) in with laundry detergent on an end display or a wing display, it helps you shield a little bit of your profit margin,” he says. In Moffat’s store, “private label (fabric softener) seems to be picking up. People are getting comfortable with it. Again, your private label is slightly cheaper than your national brands.”
Women still make up “north of 80%” of all cleaning product buyers, according to Ho. However, Kurban points out that men make more and more household buying decisions, so marketers must consider their preferences and needs.
Seniors have different wants and needs. Moffat figures 55% of his customers are seniors. Many of them buy Murphy’s Oil Soap, an older product, rather than more heavily advertised furniture care products (up four percent to $16,298,692). Ho notes that people 65 and older are wary of falling, so activities that result in wet surfaces, such as mopping, need to change so less water is used.
Baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, demand packages that are easier to open, options that are more health-conscious and products that give more results with less effort. “They may have more time but they may not want to spend it cleaning like they used to,” says Ho.
Also, as households in general get smaller (in both square footage and number of people) smaller package sizes are becoming more popular.