You may have seen it while strolling the aisles of your local auto parts store or Wal-Mart. You certainly can’t miss it; it doesn’t look like any of the other cans on the shelves.
In fact, the can looks more like an advertisement than something you’d actually buy and use.
It’s called PB B’Laster, a mechanical lubricant that can loosen even the most rusted, corroded nut or bolt, and it comes in a colorful, word-laden can that makes it stand out among its more traditionally packaged competitors.
B’Laster Chemical Cos. Inc. of Valley View manufactures the product, along with 20 other chemical products for the car, boat and home. Bill Westley, who founded B’Laster Chemical in 1950, was a bathtub chemist who returned from World War II and vowed to never return to his job selling office machines for IBM or wear a suit and tie to work again.
Westley sold the company in 1980 after two of his early products were bought out by what is now the Blue Coral Co. But PB B’Laster, which was developed for workers in the phosphate mines in Florida, remains B’Laster Chemical’s cornerstone product, explains Bill Matthews, COO and executive vice president.
“Underground, there’s a lot of corrosion. There’s a lot of heavy equipment down there that would get rusty,” Matthews says, explaining PB B’Laster’s origins. “Once (equipment) was down there a year, they couldn’t get it out because they couldn’t take it apart. They had to go in there with torches and blowtorch it apart.”
Westley, who had a friend in the phosphate mining industry, arrived in Florida with his product and the miners were able to dismantle their equipment without destroying it. Westley was lauded as a hero.
But that’s where his inventive nature ended and his vision for advertising took over. He fashioned his approach the only way he knew how — from the consumer’s point of view. So when he started marketing PB B’Laster for the consumer market, he designed the cans by cutting words out of the newspaper and gluing them to the can, often with misspellings.
“It was a big, ugly can of words,” says Tom Porter, CEO of B’Laster Chemical. “We took at least 50 percent of the words off that can and it’s still packed.”
Today, the label serves as a lesson in what not to do in product packaging in the retail market: Five colors, different sizes and styles of text cluttering every inch and strange diagrams with dubious promises.
“When we looked at the label, that was one of the things that we researched that really stuck out in the aisles for B’Laster,” says Paul Collins, vice president at Watt/Fleishman-Hillard Advertising in Cleveland, which handles B’Laster’s advertising. “It’s so contradictory to how everything is marketed productwise in the automotive aftermarket, but it’s really stuck out and people love it.”
The product has developed such a following because of its quality, which also helped the can’s distinctive look become part of its brand identity. That’s a fact Porter says he learned when he sent out a shipment of PB B’Laster with red caps on the can instead of yellow.
“We were getting calls from people saying, ‘This product doesn’t work, you changed it, we want the stuff with the yellow cap on, what did you do?'” Porter says. “We were also getting calls, ‘We like the B’Laster with the yellow cap, but we love the red cap B’Laster. What did you guys do?’ We told them we just put a different cap on, but the perception out there was something changed and it’s different now.”
So Porter and the company stuck with the tried and true and left the packaging alone. As Porter says he’s found, it’s not smart to mess with an icon.
But while the company’s identity is pinned to PB B’Laster, Porter says there are two other reasons for the company’s rampant growth over the past 20 years.
First, B’Laster Chemical’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Valley View is really the key, Porter explains.
When the Porter family bought the company, all the products were assembled by hand and workers could produce 300 cases a day. Today, 7,000 to 8,000 cases can be shipped each day.
“Most everybody contracts packaging, but we do it right here,” Matthews says. “We went to outside sourcing, but the problem there is you’re at somebody’s mercy.”
Porter adds, “And the profit margin, we just couldn’t find anyone who could make it a cheap as we do. Our plant’s a profit center.”
Second is product sales. B’Laster saw a spike in sales thanks to its introduction at Wal-Mart stores across the country, a trend Matthews says will continue, and not just at Wal-Mart.
“There’s a whole segment of the retail industry — these dollar stores — which I never knew about. The numbers are astronomical, just unbelievable. That’s where we are setting our sights on now.”
B’Laster products are sold in about 13,000 stores and are being test marketed in Home Depots in the Southeast, which could put the products in 70 more stores.
“To be honest, we could have a new product tomorrow,” Porter says. “We’re not afraid to spend money to try something and fail at something. We’ve done a lot of that.
“Trial and error, and error and error.” How to reach: B’Laster Chemical Cos Inc., (216) 901-5800
Morgan Lewis ([email protected]) is a reporter at SBN.
