Big O has a ‘Fade Away’

By John Eckberg

NBA basketball great Oscar Robertson erased most of his hardwood competition with a fadeaway jumper. These days he hopes to erase spots, spills and accidents on clothing with a shot of another sort: an enzyme-based cleaning product called Fade Away.

The wipes, to be sold exclusively in bigg’s stores for $3.99 for a 10-pack, face tough competition from a trio of products from global titans: Procter & Gamble’s Tide to Go, SC Johnson’s Shout wipes and Clorox’s Bleach Pen.

But Robertson, 68, never worried much about competition back when he dominated on basketball courts, whether he was driving into L.A. Lakers guard Jerry West or into the wingspan of Wilt Chamberlain to launch his patented fadeaway.

And the former University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Royals and Milwaukee Bucks star isn’t sweating it now, either.

For one thing, he has bigg’s, a division of Minneapolis-based Supervalu Inc., signed for six months of exclusive sales of Fade Away. Robertson will appear at the grand opening of the region’s newest bigg’s, 9600 Mason-Montgomery Road, on Tuesday, 3 to 5 p.m., and Wednesday, 6 to 8 p.m., to promote Fade Away.

After the bigg’s agreement expires, Robertson says there is no limit to the appeal of his pocket wipes for hotel chains, airlines, restaurants, discounters, convenience stores and grocery chains.

“We can compete with anybody,” Robertson said. “We’re not loaded down with layers and layers of vice presidents and managers, a corporate jet.”

Robertson is producing and distributing Fade Away through his Fairfield-based company, Orchem. Robertson launched Orchem, a specialty chemical manufacturing company, in 1981. Robertson graduated in 1960 from UC College of Business and retired from a Hall of Fame NBA career in 1974. Now he also is president of ORDMS a document management firm, and has interest in banking, real estate, construction and media. He is also the owner of OR Meats, a meat brokerage company based in Cincinnati that distributes meat products to government agencies.

His new Fade Away wipe is just one way to use his company’s enzyme-based approach to stain and grease removal. Enzymes are molecular-level catalysts that convert stains or spills from organic materials into a water-soluble substance that evaporates from the material.

Robertson thinks the environmentally safe and nontoxic wipes could one day be included by high-end clothing manufacturers whenever a men’s or women’s suit is produced. “One to a suit,” he said.

Casual dining restaurants, fast-food eateries, three- and four-star restaurants, hotels, banquet facilities – all should be interested in Fade Away, agreed Randy Miller, grocery director for Milford-based bigg’s.

Here’s why: “The product works,” Miller said. “It does exactly what it says it does. Yesterday I was in a meeting. I got a spot on my pants and had one in my briefcase. I pulled it out and wiped that stain away. It’s unbelievable.”

Sales are good so far, Miller said. “There’s no advertising or marketing behind. People in the store see it and buy it.”

Ken Munson, 58, Orchem vice president of sales and marketing, came to the company out of semi-retirement after selling his Montgomery-based company, Quality Life Products. He wants to see Fade Away in every businessman’s briefcase – every businesswoman’s purse. And that’s just for starters. Munson says the Fade Away sales target is a big one: $10 million in annual sales by 2010.

Another application – a sack of enzyme that hangs from manhole covers and drips into sewer lines – has already saved the city of Fort Wayne, Ind. from $200,000 to $400,000 annually. Rather than needing a truck loaded with a pressure washer, the enzyme works in the sewer flow to clean sewer lines.

“Instead of two guys and a truck that costs $103 an hour, all I have to do is send one guy out in a pickup truck to swap out the bags,” said Jeff Morris, superintendent of sanitary sewers for the city of about 200,000.

SMALL-SIZED PLAYER

Orchem employs 25 full- and part-time employees and brings in less than $10 million a year in revenues. Compare that to the stain-removal product revenues of its publicly traded competitors: Cincinnati-based P&G at $72.2 billion and Clorox Co. at $4.7 billion.

About 30,000 consumer products hit the food and drug markets each year, but only a fraction make it, said Rich Swanson, principal at Swanson Group, a Chicago-based strategic marketing and sales organization that helped bring Fade Away to bigg’s shelves.

But the growth of towlettes has been explosive in the recent years. Packaged Facts, the publishing arm of Rockville, Md.-based Marketresearch.com, found that spending on towelettes grew from $127 million in 2000 to $198 million in 2004. But those wipes did not necessarily have stain removal capabilities.

Another important marketing tool for Fade Away is Robertson himself, who was honored at a ceremony at halftime of a UC game last week with a five-minute standing ovation for being named the College Basketball Player of the Century and for an induction into the College Basketball Hall of Fame.