Wigan may be best known for its pier, its Rugby League team and its
native delicacy Uncle Joe’s Mintballs, but for marketers it has another
quite different significance. The town is also home to this year’s
fastest growing brands: KittenSoft Kitchen Towels and (recycled)
Nouvelle Toilet Tissue.
The mastermind behind their ascent - they enjoyed year-on-year growth of
113% and 52% respectively in the year to April, according to
Marketing/ACNielsen’s Biggest Brands Survey (July 30) - works not in a
pretentious Soho studio but on an industrial estate near Wigan. The
boring brown-brick office block is the UK headquarters of Fort James’
consumer division.
Steve Duncan, the company’s director of consumer marketing brands, makes
the paper tissue business seem far from boring. He may have honed his
presentational skills by working for years as a professional DJ at night
and an fmcg marketer by day, but his enthusiasm for his subject seems
genuine. He delights in the struggle to steal share from competitors,
most notably Kimberly-Clark. It produces Andrex, which dominates both
the toilet- and kitchen-roll markets.
Duncan and his team have already raised Nouvelle to fourth place in the
toilet-roll market and KittenSoft to third in the kitchen-roll market
(both in value terms). Nouvelle was relaunched in late 1996, when
consumers seemed less driven by environmental concerns and some even
thought recycled toilet paper was literally that. Duncan moved the word
’recycled’ from the front to the back of the pack, replaced it with a
picture of a tree, and at the same time improved the quality of the
paper.
’What we’re trying to say to people is ’You don’t have to compromise. If
you want to feel you’re doing something good for the environment but you
still want the softness of a premium toilet tissue, then Nouvelle is the
no-compromise solution’,’ says Duncan.
The KittenSoft name appeared first on what were then Dixcel toilet-roll
packets six years ago, and has gradually taken over. About 18 months
ago, Duncan relaunched the brand as KittenSoft Kitchen Towel, with
Thirst Pockets - spiral shapes embossed into the paper to make it more
absorbent.
They have also made it sell better, but Duncan warns against obsession
with technicalities. ’You have to learn to use a product the way a
consumer does, not the way your production people, laboratory staff or
technicians do. That’s why they’re called ’Thirst Pockets’, not
’KittenSoft super-embossed channelled paper’,’ he says.
Despite his sales success, Duncan is not leaning back against the packs
of toilet and kitchen roll in his office and congratulating himself. His
team has just started a round of 50 presentations to retailers, to sell
them the benefits of new versions of Nouvelle and KittenSoft, which will
hit the shelves this autumn. Duncan does not want to reveal what the
relaunches will involve, saying that his major customers will be upset
if they aren’t first to find out.
He is more forthcoming about presentations to retailers. ’The whole
process now is a lot more presentation- and fact-biased. We’re using
certain market modelling techniques, price evaluations and elasticities,
so we’re able to say where we anticipate our shares will come from, what
the effect will be to that retailer and the effect on their bottom
line,’ he says.
Duncan is also trying to recruit five senior marketing and
market-research staff, to fill gaps that have appeared as a result of
the uncertainties following the merger of Fort Sterling and Jamont last
year, creating Fort James.
Duncan comes across as the sort of person who would be a friendly,
supportive and enthusiastic boss, but one who could be extremely
unpleasant if he were made angry.
Fascination with a subject allows people to accumulate obscure facts,
and Duncan is no exception. Sixty per cent of us, apparently, use
toilet-roll holders. ’What the rest do we know, and I’m not going to
divulge that because it’s given us a development opportunity,’ Duncan
says. ’It’s also interesting to know where they put (packs of toilet
rolls), how they store them. Again, that could lead into all sorts of
different opportunities.’
He has no difficulty discussing the nation’s bathroom secrets, but he
finds his social contacts disappointingly reserved. ’If you go to a
dinner party and you’re into arms or aircraft manufacture, everybody
wants to know about it. Very few people want to know about toilet tissue
and kitchen towels. It’s so sad really; they use it every day but
they’re not prepared to open up and talk about it.’ Anyone placed next
to Duncan at dinner is forewarned.
BIOGRAPHY
1986-1988
Group manager Reckitt Household Products, Reckitt & Colman
1988-1996
Posts including general manager marketing and marketing director, Akzo
Nobel Decorative Coatings
1996-1997
Group marketing director, Fort Sterling
1997-present
Director of consumer marketing brands, Fort James
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