Pumping Up the Volume
A year ago, Rob Lange and Chuck Davey took their business from a spare bedroom into 43 million living rooms.
Through a stroke of luck, they won a contest giving their business a free commercial during the 1998 Super Bowl telecast, a dose of publicity worth $1.3 million. In their first-ever TV ad, Lange and Davey gleefully demonstrated how their hand-held air pump inflated volleyballs (squeeze, squeeze), basketballs (squeeze) and footballs.
The commercial kicked off a big year for Pocket Products Inc. Sales in 1998 grew to $2 million from $150,000 in 1997. Pocket Pump, in scarce supply a year ago, is sold in dozens of chain stores, including Big 5, JCPenney and Target. And the partners have moved their computer, phones and business records from a spare bedroom in Lange’s San Diego home into a studio apartment above it.
Their ad during the Super Bowl, the year’s most-watched TV event, put Lange and Davey on a national stage. What has kept them there is their dogged pursuit of often indifferent retail chains. It took Lange and Davey 11 months to persuade Target to stock the air pump, for example. The partners patiently continue to trade faxes and phone calls with Wal-Mart.
And with the anniversary of their once-in-a-lifetime Super Bowl ad three days away, the determined businessmen are putting the finishing touches on two new items: a tote bag for carrying a volleyball and a beach chair wide enough to seat two adults.
Lange and Davey didn’t set out to form a business. About four years ago, Lange, a San Diego fireman and beach volleyball enthusiast, cobbled an air pump from a bicycle valve and the squeeze ball from a blood pressure gauge.
“I needed a pump to bring to the beach and there weren’t any that were handy,” Lange, 34, said.
Soon other volleyball players were asking him to make them one.
Lange wondered if the air pump might be marketable and turned to his friend Davey for advice. Davey, a San Diego lifeguard with an entrepreneurial streak, immediately saw opportunity.
“I said, ‘Yes--this is what we are going to do,’ ” said Davey, 36.
They approached the task with the same persistence they have used in courting the big retailers. Their first stop was the public library in Pacific Grove, where they looked up parts manufacturers and researched patent laws.
Davey had learned the importance of doing homework. In 1994, he moved with his wife to Australia--where she had grown up--intent on launching a business importing beach chairs. The couple returned to San Diego months later, having discovered that beach chairs couldn’t profitably be imported into Australia.
By Memorial Day 1996, with a patent in hand, Lange and Davey decided to find out whether anyone would pay for the air-pump device. Armed with 10 crudely made pumps, they ventured onto the beach at San Diego’s Mission Bay and asked tourists if they would pay $10 for one. After selling the pumps in a few hours, the partners were convinced they had a worthwhile product and the right price.
Lange, Davey and their wives initially assembled pumps in Lange’s spare bedroom and shipped them to local mom-and-pop sporting goods stores. As their business grew, they turned to friends and acquaintances around Mission Bay for help and advice.
The networking proved invaluable. Davey knew a bodysurfer with an import business who offered tips on locating manufacturers in Taiwan, where Pocket Pumps eventually found a maker. A computer programmer and friend of Davey’s helped them set up software to track finances and shipping.
Then came the Super Bowl.
Lange and Davey won the “Super Bowl Search” contest sponsored by Mail Boxes Etc. as a publicity stunt. MBE marketing Vice President Jack Cantwell said the two were chosen in part because of their engaging personalties. For San Diego-based MBE, it was critical to create an ad that generated free publicity in post-game coverage of the commercials. MBE paid for and oversaw creation of the ad, produced by its agency, Kenneth C. Smith Advertising of San Diego.
“If there wasn’t an opportunity for PR follow-up, I dare say we wouldn’t do it,” Cantwell said.
The cost of commercial time in the Super Bowl annually sets new records, and advertisers have big expectations.
The ads can pay off. Volvo Trucks North America is advertising in Sunday’s game because its ad in the 1998 Super Bowl helped lift the company’s ranking to fourth place from sixth among the seven leading truck manufacturers. Within days of a 1984 ad introducing Apple Computer’s Macintosh, the personal computer sold out in stores.
Within 24 hours of last year’s Big Game, Lange and Davey logged thousands of calls to a toll-free number that appeared in the ad. Among them was an inquiry from Bed, Bath & Beyond, which resulted in sales of air pumps to the housewares chain.
To win over other chains, the men had to knock on doors. But they quickly learned the value of their Super Bowl exposure. As they knocked on doors, they found retailers were familiar with their product. “The Super Bowl gave us credibility,” Davey said.
Target took months of patient courtship. Lange and Davey first supplied local stores, then outlets in the San Diego region. They secured the national business last month in a hair-raising episode: Target requested delivery of 10,000 Pocket Pumps in four days. Lange and Davey had their supplier speed up manufacturing and paid hefty shipping costs to meet the deadline.
The men will be watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, recalling their 30 seconds in the spotlight, but also looking ahead. “I can see us doing a Super Bowl ad,” Lange said. “Definitely. Maybe 10 years from now, when we’re bigger, we’ll do it again.”
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* DROPPED KICK?
Some wonder whether the game of football is falling from grace. A1
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