The Educated Choice : Entrepreneur Markets Condoms in Colors of California Colleges
University of San Diego graduate Nick Fogel laughed when his friend, an alumnus of the University of North Carolina, arrived for a boys’ night out at a TV sports bar dressed head to toe in blue-and-white school colors.
The friend hadn’t overlooked anything. He had on his Tar Heel headband, his shirt, pants and Tar Heel socks. When someone asked if he was wearing Tar Heel shorts, he proved that he was. Then Fogel said, “I bet you even use blue-and-white Tar Heel condoms.”
When the laughter died down, it occurred to the 36-year-old Fogel that he may have just wisecracked himself into a marketing bonanza.
“It suddenly dawned on me how popular items are that feature school colors and have school insignia,” he said. “Leave it to a good Catholic boy to add condoms to the list.”
Little more than a year later, Fogel, a former actor and salesman, is the president of College Condoms, a company on the eve of shipping its first orders of color-coordinated prophylactics to campus stores and pharmacies throughout California.
On Thursday, 14,400 six-packs of College Condoms, each one bearing the advisory, “Make the educated choice,” go on sale at prices ranging from $2.99 to $3.98 per package at Long’s Drug Stores in San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno and San Jose. Campus pharmacies at USC and Fresno State will also offer the product.
The Educated Choice
Fogel and his three partners--brothers James and Virgil Marko and James Wells--hope enough students will make the educated choice that justifies College Condoms’ planned 360,000 six-pack second order and expand the initial California and Arizona launching to include 45 universities nationwide.
The four entrepreneurs have spent the 12 months contacting buyers at retail outlets and creating a marketing plan targeted to major college campuses.
Cameron Paschall, director of the USC pharmacy, said he has agreed to take a free supply of College Condoms on speculation “and we’ll wait to see what student reaction is before we consider actually purchasing his product.”
Fogel thinks College Condoms are going to be irresistible impulse buys when they are displayed among the pennants, mugs, pen and pencil sets and other collegiate paraphernalia offered in campus stores.
“I think college students are going to grab them up,” Fogel said. “There’s still this stigma about buying those things, the C word. People can’t make themselves say the word. But, with these, there’s the novelty appeal. They can say, ‘Hey, I’ll get these for my pal at Northwestern,’ when, in fact, they’re getting them for themselves.”
The first batch of College Condoms, manufactured by Circle Rubber in Newark, N.J., is being offered in three color combinations, Fogel said--blue and yellow, red and yellow and red and blue. Fogel said the blue and yellow match the colors of all the University of California campuses. He said the red and yellow will pass for the scarlet and gold of USC, plus the colors of Arizona State. The red and blue are meant to satisfy the demands at Fresno State and the University of Arizona.
Special Colors
College Condoms will not be sold around San Diego State University, Fogel said, until they are available in red and black.
“For our first order, we’ve stuck to the colors currently available from the manufacturer,” Fogel explained. “In the future, we’ll create special colors to fit each order. That’s a fairly simple process to do when the latex is being mixed for the condoms. But FDA approval is needed (for special colors) . . . but that takes time and we want to get our venture going first. Most of what we have right now matches school colors close enough, although they’re not perfect matches.”
Fogel’s marketing pitch evolves around the growing importance of condoms in light of AIDS and venereal diseases that are still spreading.
“It’s been established that using condoms is an important preventive measure,” he said. “And we’ve seen a sudden openness in advertising in print and on TV as a result. But there’s still a widespread attitude that condoms are a brown paper wrapper, behind-the-counter item.”
Fogel said he eventually will begin emblazoning his product with fraternity and sorority Greek letters and that he will use school insignias whenever he can license them from the institutions. But he doesn’t intend to stop with college campuses. Once the idea is established, he said, he intends to contact chess clubs, bowling leagues, every organization that sports special colors or insignias.
“I have had hundreds of ideas in my life, good ideas, but like most people, never carried them out,” he said. “I am not letting this one get away.”
Fogel said invention runs in his family. His grandfather, Amos Chapell, is credited with having invented the ice cream cone during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904.
Other Inventions
He said one of his uncles, Ed Chapell, invented a variety of things, including the Whisketech, a device that catches whiskers in an electric razor, Easy Out, an easy access flip-out door for mobile homes, an automatic water bailer for small boats and a commercial doughnut cutter.
For a while, Fogel appeared headed for a career as an actor. He did commercials for such companies and products as B. F. Goodrich, Coors, and Coors Lite, and was featured in ads for Moosehead and Redson beer, he said.
In 1977, he was hired as the stand-in for Dan Haggerty on the TV series “Grisly Adams.” But, shortly after he was hired, the show was canceled. He went on to play bit parts in movies such as “Skatetown U.S.A.” and “Wild Times,” which starred Sam Elliot.
Most of Fogel’s career has been in sales and marketing. During the six years before he entered the College Condoms venture full time, he said, he worked in sales for Hertz Equipment rental, Coca-Cola and Action Tools.
