Brands hang tough in household cleaners

Discount Store News, Oct 4, 1993

New product introductions coupled with packaging innovations were high on managers' minds when they discussed household cleaners in this year's Top Brands survey.

When asked to identify a department in which national name brand merchandise increased in the past year, 11% of managers named household cleaners and chemicals. This is a huge increase over the 7% of managers who named the category last year. Furthermore, store managers mentioned 52 cleaning and chemical brands this year as top performers, a 62% jump from the 32 items cited in 1992.

This large category of brands provide managers with a lot of flexibility at the store level. Managers said household cleaners is a category in which they feel they have a lot of influence. In fact, 13% of managers surveyed said they have influence over the cleaners category; that's more than for all other categories except food, candy & snacks, which was No. 1, and health & beauty care, No. 2. Two out of 10 Wal-Mart managers identified cleaners as a category in which they feel they have the most influence, behind only snacks, H&BC and garden. Responses were a little lower at Kmart, 18%, but nearly non-existent at Target, 2%.

Overall, store managers said the household cleaners and chemicals department averaged 3.1 top performers, greater than the 2.5-brand average per department. However, even with the rise in national name brand products in this category, the average number of top performers declined from 1992's average of 3.9 brands.

Tide and Clorox maintained their status as the top two brands, but the percentage of managers naming them fell, 52% for Tide compared to 62% last year, and 33% for Clorox as against 39% in 1992.

Two brands are new to the Top 10 ranking this year, although Formula 409, fifth place, has appeared in previous listings. Wisk, in seventh place with one in 10 managers naming it a top performing brand, is new to the list.

Dropping off the Top 10 were Lysol and Dow. [TABULAR DATA OMITTED]

Proctor & Gamble, which isn't a brand, but continues to be named by managers as one, ranked third due to the vendor's long-standing relationship with Wal-Mart. This resulted in 40% of the Wal-Mart managers listing P&G as a national brand even when pressed by interviewers for a specific brand in P&G's stable.