Ex-Armor All Boss Now Trying to Wipe It Out : Competition: Executive Jeffrey Sherman vows to do for No Touch what he did for his former firm--polish off rivals. Novel no-fuss tire cleaner leads new line of auto-care products.
Jeffrey Sherman is back, and the man who took Armor All Products to dizzying heights has plans to give his former employer fits.
Sherman, who served as Armor All’s president for 12 years, during which it grew from $70 million to $165 million in annual sales, is spearheading the North American introduction of a unique new tire-care product as executive vice president and general manager of No Touch North America.
No Touch, a spray-on foam for cleaning and polishing tires without scrubbing or buffing, is just now landing on retailers’ shelves.
But Sherman’s company plans to offer a cadre of auto-care products to compete against industry leaders Armor All and First Brands Corp. First Brands markets the STP Son of a Gun brand protectant and Simonize auto waxes.
No Touch North America is a wholly owned subsidiary of Taiho Industries Co. of Tokyo, a major Japanese supplier of industrial and automotive chemicals with worldwide sales of $180 million last year.
Taiho introduced No Touch in Japan in 1987, and the product has become the top-selling product in its category there ever since.
Taiho, which has attracted lots of competitors in Japan, first came to the United States in 1988, Sherman said. It was eyeing the U.S. market at the time Sherman left Armor All.
“They called me in early May (of 1990) after the first trade paper articles came out about me leaving Armor All and asked to talk about opportunities,” he said.
Sherman began as a consultant with Taiho, drafting a business plan for No Touch.
“I wanted to be sure they were willing to fund this properly and back it all the way,” he said. “Once I got that commitment, I joined full time and started putting together the management team.”
No Touch is manufactured under contract by a firm in the Midwest and is sold to retailers and wholesalers by about 100 independent manufacturers’ representatives in the United States and Canada.
Taiho is spending “in excess of $4 million” to promote the product during its first year, Sherman said.
Ads began appearing on national cable television channels last week and soon will show up on local and network stations in Los Angeles and other major markets, Sherman said. Ads are also planned for magazines that appeal to auto enthusiasts.
He believes that buyers will gobble up 5 million cans of No Touch in the next 12 months, most of them the standard 15-ounce size that will retail for about $4 a can.
His optimism is based on the belief that while there are other products on the market for cleaning tires, all of them require that each tire be scrubbed and wiped. There are also products for polishing, but they require that the tires be cleaned first.
“It took the Japanese,” Sherman says in an aggressive tone, “to combine cleaning chemistry and polishing chemistry in one product, and make it so you just spray it on and walk away.”
Taiho’s stable of products in Japan include vinyl cleaners, car waxes and auto window defoggers and Sherman said several products under development may be added to the No Touch line.
He hinted that one might be a spray cleaner for car wheels, something No Touch is not designed for.
Sherman, who resigned from Armor All in March, 1990, just a few weeks before the company posted its first-ever decline in annual profits, prefers to talk about No Touch.
But he clearly relishes the past year’s decline in Armor All’s fortunes. Profits and market share for the Irvine-based subsidiary of Foremost McKesson Corp. steadily declined last year.
Sherman also relishes his new position with an entrepreneurial company.
The 41-year-old executive built his reputation as a growth-oriented manager, and industry analysts said he was stifled by the more conservative corporate culture at Armor All under McKesson.
“I did not like being in a public company,” he said of his experiences at Armor All, “and I like very much getting back the entrepreneurial freedom that comes from being private.”
