Advertising Campaign : Armor All Plans to Crack Car Wash, Wax Market

Armor All Products Corp. said it will enter the car wash and polish market with a $5-million national ad campaign for products it claims will clean up in a field analysts say is confused with dozens of products.

Consumers now see a shelf full of pastes, liquids and foams that promise the best wash and wax ever, but few have familiar names on their label, according to Jack Sullivan, an analyst at Van Kasper & Co., a San Francisco brokerage firm.

But Irvine-based Armor All, which claims that its Armor All Protectant is the nation’s best-selling car care product, is betting that its name will be familiar enough to help it quickly capture 20% of an annual sales market of $250 million.

John F. Schueller, executive vice president of operations and finance, said company studies show that 84% of all adults in the United States are aware of Armor All Protectant, used for rubber, vinyl and plastic surfaces.

And financially, Armor All is looked on as a winner--sales for the fiscal year ended March 31 totaled $107 million, with earnings of $17 million. McKesson Corp. in San Francisco owns about 80% of the company, which was spun off in a public offering last year.

The protectant, with its striking black, orange and yellow label, has had prominent shelf space down the aisle from waxes for 17 years. Now, containers of Armor All Wax, in paste, liquid and a pressurized can, and Armor All Wash will compete for the shelf space held by popular brands such as Turtle Wax, Rain Dance and Blue Coral.

Armor All has been a perennial big-time advertiser and has a $6-million annual budget for its protectant this year, said Schueller. He said the additional $5-million national ad campaign scheduled for its waxes next year will put Armor All on television more than all other wax makers combined.

Schueller said Armor All spent more than two years developing its own formulas for the products. Labeling was the easy part; it relies on Armor All’s traditional colors.

The waxes will be promoted as being non-abrasive, an important point, said Henry Jicha Jr., an analyst at the New York investment firm Wood Gundy Corp. “A lot of waxes have old formulas that scratch the paint, but car paints are such now that waxes can be made to leave a polish but no scratch,” he said.

The Armor All washing liquid will promise that it doesn’t strip away wax, and that it will eliminate water spots. Schueller said the wash market could be as big as the market for car waxes, but the company hasn’t studied the market for washes as extensively.

Three outside manufacturers will make and package the products for Armor All, and the company plans to use the same distributors that put Armor All Protectant in 115,000 retail stores worldwide. Distribution will begin this fall in Sunbelt states, with national distribution scheduled for late winter.