Pandemic Brings Cleaning Brands To The Forefront
What a difference a couple of months makes.
At the beginning of the year, sales of cleaning products – everything from sprays and disinfectants to mops and brooms – were expected to rise 1% this year to $5.9 billion, and inch up 0.7% annually through 2023, according to Statista. But this year, through March 7, sales of aerosol disinfectants, for example, doubled.
The change is more stark, not surprisingly, in the hand sanitizer business. Last year, category sales in the U.S. fell 4.5% to just under $200 million, according to Nielsen. This year through March 7 saw a 470% increase.
Names such as Purell, Clorox and Mr. Clean now are on everybody’s lips and shopping lists – understudies thrust into the spotlight, albeit under circumstances that nobody would invite. Purell, as we’ve mentioned before, may actually be in danger of entering the realm of genricization – Is that a word? – already occupied by such brands as Kleenex, Xerox and Styrofoam.
Some cleaning brands have long been the subject of robust licensing programs, and many of those licensees had been gearing up to introduce new products at the Inspired Home Show, which was supposed to be going on now in Chicago. For example, Butler Home Products, which licenses brands from Proctor & Gamble (Dawn, Mr. Clean, Gain) and Clorox, is readying such products as a Mr. Clean roller mop with scrub brush and Clorox Duo latex cleaning gloves.
Says an executive at one cleaning products company: “Our sales have taken off since February…. In times like these, licensed brands tend to stand out on retail shelves because consumers may already be buying the licensors’ liquid cleaning products.”
Limited Licensing
As far as we can tell, Purell, the demand for which forced owner Gojo Industries to boost production and add shifts to its plants in Ohio, doesn’t appear to have a licensing program.
Another popular cleaning products brand, Reckitt Benckiser-owned Lysol — which was developed to fight cholera in Germany in the late 1800s and later used during the Spanish Flu global pandemic in 1918 — also has relatively limited licensing.
Has a new opportunity presented itself?
