Victor Kiam II; Salesman’s Salesman Who Saved Remington and Starred in Its Ads
“The Remington MicroScreen shaver shaves as close as a blade. . . . I liked it so much I bought the company.”
--Victor Kermit Kiam II
Victor K. Kiam II, the salesman’s salesman known for turning around failing companies like Benrus watches and Remington shavers and prodding other bosses to pitch their own products on television, has died. He was 74.
Kiam, the football zealot who was unable to inspire the same turnaround in the fortunes of the New England Patriots team he once owned, died Sunday at his home in Stamford, Conn. The chain smoker with the internationally known gravelly voice had suffered several heart attacks.
At the age of 8, Kiam opened a soft drink stand by the tracks that carried the streetcar named Desire in his native New Orleans.
A decade or so later, in Paris to study languages at the Sorbonne, he used his beat-up Simca to show visitors around the City of Light, billing himself as the European Touring Service.
With Navy service behind him, a bachelor’s degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard, he went to work for Lever Bros., quickly rising to marketing director.
Asked to sell toothpaste to bored wholesalers at a Florida conference, he rented a monkey from a pet store and walked in with the animal on his shoulder, announcing: “I sell Pepsodent; I have a monkey on my back.” Pepsodent orders, Kiam would relate proudly, “went way up.”
In 1968, he bought Benrus Corp. from its founding Lazrus family. He ended discount store marketing and price reductions that he felt lowered confidence in the high-end watches, and began an aggressive television marketing campaign--turning deficits into profits and foretelling his own future fame for electronic pitch-making.
Kiam moved toward international recognition in 1979, when he staged a $25-million leveraged buyout of Remington Products Corp., which had hemorrhaged about $30 million in five years.
He fired 70 executives for an annual savings of $2 million, ended perks including company cars and the executive cafeteria, fused “white-collar” and “blue-collar” pay plans into “one Remington-collar pay scale,” gave pep talks to workers and offered financial pats on the back for good work.
And then there were those ads.
Pronouncing the existing commercials atrocious, Kiam said in a 1986 interview in The Times: “We sat down and wrote what we call a nuts-and-bolts commercial: ‘The Remington MicroScreen shaver. . . . ‘ “
“This commercial has a Walter Mitty approach, a dream,” he said. “That’s really what triggered people: ‘I liked it so much I bought the company.’ It turned out to be almost a historical line, but at the time it was just the truth.”
The born salesman, exuding your favorite neighbor’s trustworthiness with wavy silver hair and a twinkle in his eye, was soon sending consumers out to buy Remington shavers around the world. The commercials, shot in his office, were cheap and they worked. They soon prompted Lee Iacocca and other chief executives to follow his lead.
“I know 29 seconds in 15 languages,” Kiam once said. “I can knock off 15 commercials in a day. It goes like clockwork.”
He wrote a book about his Remington takeover and turnaround, “Going With It,” in 1986, and remained chairman of Remington’s board until his death.
Little wonder that the lifelong football fan felt he could do similar wondrous things for the losing Patriots.
He bought the team from founder Billy Sullivan in 1988 for $85 million, calling it a good investment for Remington.
But that leveraged purchase turned out to be just about the only bad deal Kiam ever made. Far from making money, the Patriots cost him an estimated $20 million, forcing him to sell his 51% interest in the team and his personal stake in Remington in 1992. (His family retains controlling interest in Remington.)
Kiam the turnaround king had no talent for turning a losing team into a winning one.
And even worse than its win-loss record, the team handed Kiam the most humiliating public relations nightmare of the telegenic genius’ life.
The incident, which quickly escalated into a national debacle over women reporters in locker rooms, occurred Sept. 17, 1990, when the Boston Herald’s Lisa Olson conducted a postgame interview near the Patriots’ shower area. She later sued Kiam, the team general manager and three players for sexual harassment, charging that the players made lewd comments and exposed themselves.
Kiam, who had always seemed to know just what to say to the public, made two highly publicized gaffes before saying he had been misinformed about what transpired. The first was brushing off the incident by calling it “a flyspeck in the ocean.” The second, which he denied ever saying, was calling Olson “a classic bitch.”
By the time Kiam publicly apologized for “a grievous injury to a lovely young lady,” the Patriots’ image and value had fallen even lower. The National Football League fined the Patriots, Kiam and the three players $72,500. Olson’s suit, which was settled out of court, cost a purported $250,000.
Kiam tried retiring in 1994 and played tennis and bridge for a couple of months, but predictably “got itchy.” So he took over RPI Corp., an umbrella for 10 small product manufacturers, and in 1998 was invited to try his turnaround talents in England with the ailing Ronson company--leading to a happier day in court.
In January 1999, the London Daily Mirror ran an article suggesting that Kiam intended to scuttle Ronson, plunging it into bankruptcy, and advising Kiam: “Perhaps now is the time to hang up your boots and concentrate on getting a tan.”
Kiam sued for libel and last year won an award of 105,000 British pounds plus costs.
The entrepreneur is survived by his wife, Ellen; two daughters, Lisa Durkin and Robin Aviv; son, Victor III and five grandchildren.
