AIDS Scare : Condoms Go to Front of the Market

Bill Chrzanowski walked to Building 21, a squat, brick structure in the middle of the Schmid Laboratories facility here, and pulled open a big steel door. “Six months ago,” he said, “no one knew this place existed.” The factory manager headed inside. Inside was where they make the condoms.

The plant was warm and smelled powerfully of ammonia. Chrzanowski picked his way through a labyrinth of storage tanks and test stations, and it all seemed rather nondescript, generically industrial, until he reached the dipping machine. Generality vanished at the dipping machine.

Made of Latex

Zipping along a 250-foot conveyor belt was a procession of more than 2,000 glass and stainless steel phallic molds, called mandrels. Along the way, the mandrels were submerged twice in troughs of latex, natural sap from Malaysian rubber trees. The forms rotated after each dip to ensure a smooth, even spread of the liquid. The latex dried and hardened and finally peeled off, another condom finished. And the ceaseless mandrels glided away for another 17-minute turn around the rectangular circuit.

“How many of these things do you make?” Chrzanowski was asked as he watched the freshly made prophylactics flop down steadily, plop, plop, plop, into collection sacks.

“About a half-million,” he said.

“Is that a week, a month, or a year?”

“That’s a day.”

The Media Crackled

This was a Tuesday morning in mid-February, and everything was crazy in the condom industry. One of those invisible tripwires of the communications age had been activated, and the explosion was at full strength. Time and Newsweek cover stories, television news specials, radio talk shows--the media crackled with condom talk. Ministers and frat houses conducted condom giveaways. Johnny Carson told condom jokes by night, and by day the Surgeon General made front page news publicly promoting condom usage. Condom stock achieved orbit.

Heightened fear about AIDS--particularly among heterosexuals heeding warnings that they, too, should beware of the deadly virus--was of course most responsible for the clamor; while research is still under way, independent studies have found that the AIDS virus cannot penetrate a properly used, unbroken prophylactic.

For those who make and market condoms, it was all rather strange--at once both glorious and frightening. To tour the industry from factory to pharmacy during this frenetic time was to encounter a lot of bewildered people, not quite sure how to react to being heralded as front-line soldiers in a war against the next plague.

The industry had long been content to deliver its modest contribution to the gross national product in obscurity, perhaps with even a faint blush of embarrassment. Three major manufacturers had dominated for decades, and competition was described as “a peaceful co-existence.”

Now, everything was fluid, volatile. A war of self-promotion was under way and the potential for success--for redefining the product, for increasing market share of individual brands, for expanding the stakes of the competition--seemed unlimited. Conversely, so did the potential for failure. This was not the time for a marketing miscalculation.

No Overnight Bonanza

Sales were estimated to be running about 10% ahead of 1986. This was the first increase in five years, but it hardly represented an overnight bonanza. And industry executives could recall how, a few years back, herpes blasted briefly through the national consciousness without a discernable impact on condom sales.

“I’m not sure where it’s going to go,” said Don Falk, the president of Schmid, which markets condoms under the Ramses, Sheik and Fourex brands. “Frankly--and I’m sure every manufacturer of condoms would tell you this--we would be delighted to basically get back to running the business of selling condoms for contraception, which is what we have done for 103 years.”

There were few workers in the Schmid factory. Chrzanowski said a crew of only 17 keeps the plant operating 24 hours a day, five days a week. A microbiologist by training, Chrzanowski, 39, has toiled for Schmid for 16 years. His tenure is hardly remarkable. Many of his workers have been there longer, and at least two have made condoms for more than 40 years.

“It’s steady work,” was how Chrzanowski explained it.

Schmid, a subsidiary of London International, is the second largest producer of condoms for sale in the United States, claiming about 40% of the market. The biggest line is Trojans, which accounts for slightly more than half the market. The Trojans line was purchased last year by Carter Wallace Inc., a New York-based drug company. Ansell-Americas sells a much smaller percentage under its LifeStyles brand, but its volume of government contract work--mainly producing prophylactics for free distribution in the Third World--makes it the nation’s largest condom manufacturer.

Imports a New Factor

These are the big three, and they are responsible for bringing about 325 million condoms--$150 million worth--into the United States each year. A burgeoning collection of imports and smaller manufacturers--including a firm that specializes in racily packaged condoms dispensed from men’s room vending machines--accounts for the remainder. Most manufacturers employ roughly the same processes and ingredients; competition is waged more over promotion and packaging than product quality.

Chrzanowski’s crews create all kinds of condoms--ribbed condoms, lubricated condoms, condoms with reservoir tips, pink condoms, yellow condoms, green condoms, blue condoms. Carved notches in the glass mandrels create the condoms with ribbed sidings. Colors are added during the second latex dipping.

“We run each color about two weeks out of the year,” Chrzanowski said.

The condoms made here are trucked to a plant in South Carolina, where each is individually tested and then packaged. Individual testing of condoms is a point stressed by people throughout the industry. During a half-hour tour, Chrzanowski demonstrated no less than five tests.

Tested for Strength

Once, Chrzanowski attached a new condom to the nozzle of an air tank. It filled with air and stretched to the size of three footballs. “Can you believe we get letters from guys saying these things are too small?” Chrzanowski said, a wry smile briefly crossing his otherwise all-business countenance. The test ended with a loud bang.

At another test station was Andrea Diaz, a 52-year-old mother of two daughters. Diaz was able to talk and test at the same time, expertly sliding condoms onto a faucet and filling them with water. “I’m looking for leaks,” she said.

Diaz told how her future mother-in-law, who at the time worked for Schmid, got her the job at the condom factory 30 years ago.

“When I started working here,” she recalled, “I didn’t even know what these were for. At first I didn’t want to say I work here. I would say, ‘I work in a balloon place.’ ”

She giggled. “Now,” she said, “Everybody talks about them. I say, ‘These are good for you! Use them!’ ”

The meeting began after lunch in the Manhattan offices of the Bloom advertising agency. Everyone sat at a round table. Bob Bloom himself was present, along with half a dozen of his top creative talent. The client was the Mentor Corp., a medical devices firm, represented by its president, Christopher J. Conway, and by Al Mannino, vice president for home care products.

The topic was condom ads. The company earlier this year had introduced its first line of condoms, called Mentors. Packaged in boxes adorned with soft, feminine pastel splashes, Mentors were marketed directly for women. At the time, this was a revolution in the industry. It also marked a radical departure from the script of American folklore, in which condoms are purchased by nervous teen-age boys who tuck them away in their wallets.

Now everyone was pitching women, and it was time to develop a second generation of ads. These would focus on differences in design. Mentors are equipped with a patented adhesive material on the base end, intended to prevent them from slipping off. The advertising people wanted to promote this, calling Mentors the only “no-slip condom.”

Other condom-makers have been dubious about Mentor, challenging the implied accusation that slipping condoms was a major product liability.

In truth, condoms are a fairly low-tech item. They have been around for at least 2,000 years. Condoms have been made from animal intestines, silk paper, leather, vulcanized rubber and, for the last half-century, latex.

A 1934 study of condoms found that 58% were flawed. Questions about reliability diminished after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration claimed jurisdiction over quality control before World War II. Today, condoms are said to be more than 95% reliable, and manufacturers contend that most failures are caused by clumsy application or improper storage.

Making Them Thinner

Much of the research and development by the U.S. condom industry has concentrated on thinning the material. Consumer Reports in 1979 found that “most of the 159 respondents who cited reasons for not using condoms indicated in various ways that the condom impaired sexual pleasure.”

Consumer surveys prompted such advancements as color schemes, and yes, condom marketing executives say, they do get letters. “We had one suggestion for a florescent condom,” one condom executive said. “Something that lit up in the dark.”

But with growing concern about sexually transmitted disease, the emphasis in condom promotion has shifted back to reliability. Why push colors when you can claim to be a weapon against a killer disease?

This was the point that the Bloom advertising experts wanted to stress in Mentor’s second round of advertising. The agency favorite was: “The Best Protection Against AIDS Since the Condom; The No-Slip Condom.” It was the only entrant that referred directly to the disease. The ad people asserted that AIDS, more than anything else, would drive women to buy condoms.

Coffee Table Topic

“Maybe it’s because I’m from Manhattan,” one young woman among the ad group said, “but it is clear from what I’ve seen myself that people are talking in social coffee table circles about condoms. That didn’t happen two years ago.”

Conway, the Mentor president, was hesitant. He worried about being seen as hawking fear.

“I just wonder it it’s too dramatic,” he said, fingering his pipe. “The rest of the world is trying to educate the public about the safety of condoms and here we are saying that all those other condoms are not safe.”

Around and around they went. Finally, it was decided to eliminate the direct reference to AIDS. It would be implied anyway. Everyone exhaled and congratulated each other on their wisdom.

“Now,” Bloom said, “maybe we should chat TV. . . .”

Mark Klein had no confusion about what AIDS could do for his product. Klein, 37, is marketing director for Trojans, king of the hill in the condom world. His office was on the 40th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper. On his desk sat a cupful of what appeared to be 40 yellow pencils, most of them sharpened to a fine point.

He spoke with disdain of the numbers some of his competitors were kicking about, projections of huge sales increases and dramatic shifts toward women buyers.

“We haven’t seen it yet,” Klein said. “We think it’s coming. It is kind of a gut feel. . . . Herpes did nothing for the condom business, if that’s a barometer, but this thing is fatal. This thing is something that is here to stay. Short of finding a cure tomorrow, I’m sure you will see the numbers. In five years as many people are going to die of AIDS as died in Vietnam, the whole war. And its exponential growth after that. So the long-term implications are incredible.

“And right now, unless people choose to abstain, the only thing left is condoms.

“So. . . .”

Boosting Ad Budget

Klein expressed no concern about new competitors such as Mentor, and brushed away any suggestion that Trojans might surrender its dominance. The company plans to spend millions on advertising in 1987, more than was spent before in any year by the entire industry.

“We are dealing from strength,” Klein said. “Now if (the competition) comes up with a red-white-and-blue condom, and it does well, you got to believe that tomorrow we will be out with one, too.”

For lunch, Joe Sickle ordered tuna on rye. He was in a coffee shop at a Quality Inn in Catonsville, Md., about 20 miles down the road from Baltimore. He had picked the meeting place and provided precise directions on how to get there. Joe Sickle knows his territory. Joe Sickle is a traveling salesman. One of his principal products is condoms. Do not make the mistake of calling him a condom salesman.

“I don’t consider myself a condom salesman,” he said, fixing a hard eye on the interviewer. “OK? I consider myself a salesman first. I am a company representative. I don’t feel I’m any different than any salesman walking into a store or selling any product. I think the word condom salesman is something that is--how do I put it?--stressed improperly. It’s like anything else.”

Given this attitude, it was probably a mistake to ask Sickle about condom jokes.

“I’ve heard a lot of jokes,” he said tersely. “I’ve heard a lot of jokes, told over and over and over again. I don’t remember them. I don’t even try. You laugh at them. And that’s about the end of them.”

He wasn’t smiling.

Sickle is 57 years old, a Maryland native. He speaks with a Baltimore accent, and he misses his Colts. He wore this day a gray business suit, a red-white-and-blue tie, and a robin’s egg blue shirt with a white collar.

He clocks 40,000 miles a year, calling on pharmacies and stores in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., for Schmid Laboratories. He has been doing it for 22 years.

‘Somewhat Embarrassing

Sickle was selling insurance in 1964 when he saw an ad for a pharmaceutical salesman. He remembers his first calls as “somewhat embarrassing.” At the time condoms were kept in drawers behind the counter. The salesman’s challenge was to convince pharmacists to put your brand in the top drawer.

“I was instrumental in this area here in getting this merchandise out of the drawers, getting them into racks,” Sickle said. “It took years to do that. It wasn’t an overnight process.”

How did he do it?

“By selling the idea that they would increase their volume of sales. By selling the idea that it was for birth control. By selling the idea that it was a needed item, just like any other item in the drugstore.”

Sickle does not carry guilt about selling thousands of condoms each week, even though the Catholic Church he was raised in opposes the use of prophylactics, AIDS or no AIDS.

“I think I’m a very moral person,” he said. “Because I sell this stuff doesn’t mean I . . . run around.”

Once condoms went on display, the sales game changed. It became important to ensure that your products got the best spot on the display rack, or pegboard. Eye level was preferred. Sickle said, however, that it remains “kind of controversial” whether it is best to be on the right or left side.

Now, there are other changes. Discount stores and supermarkets are stocking shelves with condoms bought in bulk. And Sickle now actually has people calling him to place orders, a salesman’s dream. He even gets calls from colleges. As Sickle’s boss put it, “There is no hard sale in the condom business right now.”

On the other side of America, far from Building 21 and Manhattan marketing genius and Joe Sickle’s coffee shop, Fred Mayer stood in a white smock at the rear of his Sausalito pharmacy and in a whisper pointed out the young woman who was lingering at the condom display. Then he pounced.

“Need some help?” he boomed out.

“Not really,” she mumbled.

“Well, look around,” the pharmacist thundered. “Be a shopper! “

The woman, eyes down, darted to the other side of the store, where she intently studied the greeting cards.

“It’s the women who are buyers,” Mayer said. “Men don’t buy. They don’t plan.”

A Lonely Struggle

It was Valentine’s Day, and Mayer was enjoying no small amount of vindication. For nearly 20 years he has been publicly promoting condoms from his little storefront on the town’s main strip of tourist boutiques. Posters plastered on his front windows depict pregnant men and hands with condoms stretched over each finger. “Keep a rubber on hand,” the posters proclaim. It had been a lonely struggle, and now he was thoroughly enjoying the company.

Feb. 14 is a special date at the store--the beginning of National Condom Week, an observance Mayer started nine years ago. “Why Feb. 14?” he said. “Because I said, ‘Hey that’s the day they give out Valentines. That’s love day.’ ”

Mayer started pushing condoms in 1968: “I said to myself, we have got the answer to both teen-aged pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. And that’s the condom. We have got 50,000 pharmacists in the trenches. We could do something about this disease.”

Turn him loose and Mayer will talk rapid-fire at length about condoms and their importance, about pharmacists, about the politics of venereal diseases, the shopping habits of women, federal health bureaucrats, Sausalito, and the prophylactic industry--particularly his unsuccessful efforts to obtain support from it for National Condom Week.

Need Competition

“The industry is very stodgy,” he said. “. . . ‘Let’s not upset the apple cart. We’re all doing fine.’ That’s the condom business. What they need is competition. They are probably going to hate my guts for saying this. If we had gotten assistance from these people, instead of them being so concerned about their image, we wouldn’t be at the stage where we had to wait for people dying. . . .”

New competition, of course, could force innovation. Brazilian and Greek condoms now are showing up in some drugstores, and import companies are forming to ship in Japanese condoms. Japanese condoms are often described as the class of the field.

In Japan, condoms are the preferred method of birth control and they are peddled aggressively by door-to-door salesmen. Mayer can foresee a day when similar patterns develop here.

“It’s only beginning,” he said.

It was funny that the pharmacist brought up the subject of Japanese condoms. His son has contracted with a Japanese manufacturer to import condoms to the United States. He intends to call them Kimonos.

The down side of media explosions is that they can prove difficult to manage. For instance:

One week after condom attention reached its highest pitch in mid-February, the stock of publicly held condom companies--which had doubled in the previous few months--dipped sharply.

A Buffalo, N.Y., minister who gained national attention by distributing free condoms to his congregation was reported by a local newspaper to have once been accused of exposing himself to a troop of Girl Scouts.

And a New York advertising agency responsible for a provocative condom campaign--it depicted a young woman who said she would do a lot for love, but not “die for it”--resigned the account. The agency was piqued that the condom company president had been quoted in Time magazine as saying that “AIDS is a condom marketer’s dream.”

Still, rest assured that in Building 21 the dipping machine rolled on.