Irvine Company Aims to Dominate Market : Armor All Hopes the Introduction of Car Wax Will Be No Pig in a Poke

When Matthew Hemphill arrived at the county fair in Gatesville, Tex., with his show pig, he saw other contestants gussying up their animals with hair spray and bath oils. So Matthew’s father reached into the family pickup truck and grabbed the Armor All.

“We knew it blocked out dirt on the truck, so we thought it might work on the pig,� said 10-year-old Matthew.

With that Armor All shine covering its body, the pig won best appearance honors in the heavyweight division and went on to be the 1988 grand champion. Chalk up another marketing prize winner for Armor All Car Care Protectant, which was designed for car tops and dashboards, but is used on everything from briefcases to golf bags.

The pioneer of protectants, Armor All has become a household item for more than 60 million people. Sales at Armor All Products Corp. in Irvine topped $100 million last year, and this year the firm is muscling its way into the car wax market, introducing three kinds of wax with the support of a $5-million ad campaign.

Founded 16 years ago, Armor All achieved its success by creating a niche and dominating it. Its fortunes are based on a chemical product introduced by slick marketer Alan Rypinski that cleans and shields plastic, vinyl and most upholstery. The secret to its formula is the company’s GT-10 additive, a patented mix of “sun screens and plasticizers,� according to Paul Jones, the company’s business development manager.

Other car-care companies have marketed leather, vinyl and rubber car care protectors, but none have been as popular or found as many widespread uses as Armor All’s protectant.

“They created a market, and still have a 90% share,� said John Curti, an analyst at Birr, Wilson & Co., a stock brokerage firm in San Francisco. “Armor All is a cash cow.�

Armor All, which Rypinski sold in 1979, also is one of the best performing firms in Orange County. The company’s net profits, stock performance and market value all ranked in the top 10 among Orange County’s public companies last year.

Sales have grown each of the past five years at an average annual rate of 20%. For fiscal 1988, which ended March 31, sales reached $126.4 million, and the company earned $22.3 million.

The Armor All name, which the company claims is as strongly associated with a product as Kleenex, Windex and Jell-O, is now being used on a new product, Armor All Car Wax, which will be showing up on store shelves early this spring.

“Some people introduce six new products a year, and most of them will never sell,� said company President Jeffrey Sherman. Armor All, on the other hand, has introduced only four products in its history: the original protectant in 1972, Clean Start car cleaner in 1986, and now the wax and also a car wash product.

“We’re not in the wax business to be the third- or fourth- or fifth-leading brand. We’re in the business to be the No. 1 one brand. And if that means overtaking Rain Dance and Turtle Wax, so be it,� Sherman said.

The company spent more than two years developing the wax and studying consumers’ habits and loyalties and last year put its product in the hands of “several hundred key users� to get a reaction.

Armor All is spending more than $5 million on consumer advertising this year to promote the new product, an amount that analysts said is more than the combined ad expenditures of all wax makers in 1987.

Retailers say Armor All isn’t expected to have trouble persuading buyers of its car protectant to try its new product.

But the question is whether consumers will like it enough to buy it over and over. Because most consumers buy only one container of wax a year, repeat business won’t be known until next year.

Other wax makers already are taking steps to try to divert attention from Armor All’s product introduction, which several executives in the car care industry say is the hottest topic of conversation this year.

Turtle Wax has introduced a new, “nonabrasive� wax product this year, and the company has increased its consumer advertising. Turtle Wax, which claims about 40% of car wax sales, and Rain Dance, with 20%, are the market leaders.

Chuck Tornabene, Turtle Wax’s vice president of marketing, declined to discuss Armor All’s entrance into the wax market. “We’re concentrating on our products, not on what others are doing,� Tornabene said.

Rosemarie Kitchin, editor of Automotive Marketing magazine in Radnor, Pa., said Armor All has the potential to overtake competitors and become the industry leader. “But it will take several years,� Kitchin said.

Jim Gauntlet, president of Team Car Care Warehouse, a retail auto accessories chain in Capitol Heights, Md., said wax buyers are extremely loyal because many of them have stuck with their brand for more than a dozen years and know what kind of shine to expect.

“But Armor All has a great name and a huge following,� Gauntlet said.

Doug Butts, a high school senior in Russellville, Ark., is one of those loyalists. He is one of the more conventional customers, using the Armor All protectant to give a clean look to the tires on his 1979 Camaro Berlinetta.

Henry Jicha, a consumer products industry analyst in New York at the brokerage firm Wood Gundy, also swears by the protectant as a waterproofer for briefcases.

“It’s a formula that nobody else has hit on, and it doesn’t look like anyone will,� Jicha said.

One sure thing, according to Susan Hemphill in Texas: “lots of contestants in next year’s Coryell County 4-H Fair are going to run out and buy Armor All.�