NEW YORK — Two former executives of mass-market hair and personal care manufacturers have created their own brand targeting teen boys and young men.
Edward Marlowe, a former research and development executive at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., and Eugene Zeffren, who oversaw marketing and R&D at Unilever Home and Personal Care North America, have teamed to form NFG Stuff LLC. Their goal: to introduce a hair care brand for 13- to 25-year-old males called NFG, or Not For Girls, at mass-market outlets in the next 12 months.
“We hope to be in the mass market by the end of the year or early next year,” said Marlowe. “We’re looking at that very seriously.”
Marlowe, who helped develop stalwart hair care collection Clairol Herbal Essences prior to Clairol’s acquisition in 2001 by Procter & Gamble, also played a part in the development of the numeric scale denoting SPF while at Schering-Plough Corp. in the early Seventies.
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Meanwhile, Zeffren, who was president of Helene Curtis USA until its acquisition by Unilever in 1996, was instrumental in developing the Finesse and Thermasilk brands.
The two PhD’s have been pleased with an initial year-long trial of two NFG products — a shampoo and a hair gel — at about 175 college bookstores and a number of mom-and-pop skate, ski, surf and sporting goods shops, Marlowe noted.
He believes that, during the next year, the brand has the potential to reach the $2 million to $5 million range in retail sales volume, including the planned mass-market distribution.
The five-year plan is to make NFG a $25 million brand at retail.
“We’ve learned a lot,” Marlowe said of the test marketing campaign. He cited consumer data from at least 500 males and additional information from 20,000 visitors to nfgstuff.com. “Young men wanted a shampoo that had a masculine odor,” he said. “They didn’t want their hair soft but manageable without flyaways.” Marlowe said the shampoo formula uses a special surfactant system and a manageability agent designed to achieve those results. NFG’s scent is meant to evoke a classic barbershop because guys, according to Marlowe, don’t want “fruity, citrus or bouquet” aromas.
Marlowe expects to launch NFG at mass with at least four hair care products in the collection. New items, however, are in preliminary planning stages. “We very strongly believe this will go beyond hair care,” said Marlowe, who added, “when you think about the products young men use and look at various categories, there are three or four areas we’d like to pursue.” As for starting with a shampoo, “If you look at the consumer we’re focused on,” said Marlowe, “the product they use every day is a shampoo. The product they use right after that is a gel.”
The jug-like NFG shampoo bottle was designed with blue and white graphics to stand out among round shampoo bottles with “feminine touches” like soft colors, according to Marlowe. The 15-oz. NFG shampoo retails for $6.99, as does the 4-oz. tube of gel that’s designed not to flake off.
Discussing his inspiration for NFG, Marlowe said, “I saw how young women embraced Herbal Essences. When I retired, it just came to me: [Male youths] could be a very good area to focus our attention because there was not a product in the market that was focused on this group.”
Yet NFG Stuff LLC is apparently not the only start-up that considers this market untapped. P&G and a firm called OT OverTime LLC — which was founded by former P&G employees — have reached a licensing agreement to market hair and personal care to boys.
— Matthew W. Evans