Two names familiar to generations of American consumers joined forces last week to form an industry giant destined to create an entirely new genre of in-demand products: body polish.
Johnson & Johnson, known in the world over for its iconic Neutrogena line and other personal care products, merged with S. C. Johnson, furniture care industry leader with its Pledge line of polishes. Jason LaVetch, VP of marketing for the newly minted company, said the synergies were obvious.
“Whether you’re deep cleaning a table leg or your own leg, the end result is the same: something you’re proud to have family and friends stare at. As preliminary discussions between the two companies progressed, we began to see the contours of a new direction in personal cleanliness emerge. Sure, it’s great to smell nice and be germ free. But if your entire body could look as waxen and reflective as a solid cherry table top, you’re playing at a whole new level.”
LaVetch said he was excited to be a key player in content generation and top of the funnel planning as the first products are rolled out. He’s particularly impressed by one idea that’s being developed to utilize a huge surplus of lemon oil that S.C. Johnson brought to the deal.
“We’ve seen industry-wide sales of men’s body washes take off as younger male consumers reject the Boomer ideal of going ‘au natural.’ They know you’re never going to get anything other than a lady of the night to put something in her mouth that smells like a musty canvas duffel in the back of an abandoned storage locker. Our innovative solution will combine great citrus smell and high gloss factor with a new standard of participatory personal care interaction as we roll out Polish My Knob. This product will contain a lemon-based body wash + wax and a polishing cloth sold in a scaled down version of a shoe shine kit. Just rest your nuts on the kit, hand the polish and cloth to your love interest and let her shine away.”
While this new direction in personal care has industry insiders buzzing with talk of it being a game changer, there are still some internal challenges holding back widespread acceptance of the product, LaVetch explained. “Corporate law hates this product. They have a lot of concerns that we are going to be hit with sterility claims over toxic lemon syndrome, maybe we’re walking into a storm of class action lawsuits and so on. Right now they’re working hard on language to display in the kit that would exclude product liability for snapping the polishing cloth at the end of the cleaning. We’ll get to product delivery but there are going to be growing pains on the way, no doubt.”
