Detergent market gets ready for US onslaught
US detergents business The Clorox Company is understood to be planning an assault on the saturated UK household cleaner market.
The first product to be launched in the UK is a bleach cleaner called Clorox Clean-Up. This is the second biggest brand in the US all-purpose cleaning market, behind another Clorox product, Pine-Sol.
Clorox Clean-Up will be positioned against brands such as Lever Brother’s Domestos multi-surface cleaner.
An industry source says: “It has the advantage in this overcrowded market of being very powerful.”
It is understood an anti-bacterial cleaner in the same range will be launched against products such as Reckitt & Colman’s Dettox, SC Johnson’s Mr Muscle and Lever’s Jif.
The Clorox Company has already carried out research looking at the UK market leaders and product usage around the home.
The California-based company, which has a turnover of nearly $2bn (1.3bn), recently reassigned bleach and home-cleaning brand ads from Foote Cone & Belding to DDB Needham Worldwide (MW March 1).
The change was prompted by SC Johnson’s move to consolidate its business at FCB, which led to conflicts.
In the bathroom and kitchen cleaners market, Lever is number one with a 32.1 per cent share by value, 29.8 per cent of which is held by Jif. Procter & Gamble has a 20.2 per cent share, with 16.9 per cent of that from Flash. Own-label products account for 13.4 per cent and SC Johnson’s Mr Muscle has 15.9 per cent (IRI 1995).
