Roll reversal

A major investment in TAD towel machines at the Wauna and Port Hudson mills, combined with savvy marketing, lets Georgia-Pacific revitalize its Brawny icon

Relating a $500-million investment in towel making technology with the changes in roles for men and women may seem like a stretch, but not at Georgia-Pacific (G-P), where a recognized brand has opened the door for translating paper towel attributes into human emotion - and dollars. The 2003 installation of state-of-the-art towel machines in Zachary, La., and Clatskanie, Ore., as well as upgraded converting capabilities, has given both the Brawny towel and its tough, lumberjack icon a dual purpose where an improved base sheet signifies strength and improved softness conveys sensitivity.

"We made this investment to capitalize on the wonderful brand equity that existed with Brawny by improving on the quality of the product in order to deliver a true premium towel that satisfies customer and consumer needs in the marketplace," said Rob Lorys, G-P's vice-president of marketing for North American Consumer Products. "In conjunction with our highly creative agency partners, we executed an effective integrated marketing effort around the complete modernization of the brand - from product attributes and package design to the Brawny man icon itself - that optimized our business goals for this powerful product line."

To compete with the extensive ad spending within the paper towel market sector, G-P carefully places its ad spending.

"Our advertising budget is smaller than our major competitors', so we've been selective and focused on a female consumer target," explains Gino Biondi, G-P's director of marketing for Brawny. "Whether it's quantitative research or qualitative research in focus groups, we found that women are intrigued by the idea of having a man that helps around the house. We married this concept to our initial intent of producing a better, more competitive towel."

Prior to its re-launch in early 2004, Brawny paper towels, with a market share of 11%, held the No. 2 spot behind Procter & Gamble's (P&G's) Bounty, which held 35% of the market. According to Biondi, G-P saw this as a "huge opportunity gap," especially given the product's brand recognition.

"Our unaided brand awareness is over 80%, and, in some cases, it actually tracked above Bounty," Biondi describes. "Brawny's top-of-mind awareness, meaning what brand consumers think of first when asked about paper towels, peaks at 36%, even though its market share was at 11%. If you can mention our brand first, why wouldn't you buy our brand first?"

To gain both market share and dollar share with a better performing towel, G-P embarked upon an R&D endeavor in 2002 that drew upon resources throughout the company in an atmosphere where "teams ensured no one presupposed what the consumer wants ... they had to dig deeper," according to Michael Burandt, executive vice president of G-P's North American Consumer Products. Combined with an increase in marketing and a non-traditional advertising strategy that stretches marketing dollars, G-P's $500-million investment is accomplishing its goals of ensuring that Brawny is a consumer product, not a commodity (see sidebar, p. 34).

Closing the performance gap

Prior to its re-launch, Brawny was made of two plies of conventional wet press (CWP) towel, an older technology that G-P had "maximized," says Biondi. To match pace with P& G and Kimberly-Clark (K-C) and capitalize on Brawny's strong brand equity, an investment in through-air drying (TAD) technology was necessary.

Drawing from operational expertise throughout the company and working with its pilot facility in Neenah, Wis., G-P developed the new sheet in 2002. As Burandt stated, the marketing, R&D, and manufacturing teams refused to presume consumer opinions, including the idea that both plies should be TAD. In fact, research had shown that the best performing towels actually over-delivered 89% of the time. In addition, energy costs for TAD machines are estimated to be about 40% higher than conventional machines.

Ultimately, G-P chose to combine one ply of CWP technology with a TAD base sheet, calling the combination advanced base sheet technology (ABT). Biondi says ABT creates a better value for the consumer and for G-P.

"The CWP sheet has a tight fiber structure that holds liquids tightly as compared with a TAD sheet, which is a little bit softer, slightly stronger, and absorbs faster," explains Biondi. "So we married those two sheets and got a strong, more absorbent, softer towel. When we researched ABT as the way to close the technology gap, we put it in consumer homes and it was rated as high as the leading brand from a performance standpoint."

In December 2001, G-P's board of directors approved a $150-million project to install an 80,000-tpy TAD paper towel machine and related converting equipment at the Port Hudson mill in Zachary, La. A fully integrated mill that generates about 69% of its electrical needs, Port Hudson was a large capacity facility producing uncoated freesheet on two 378-in.-wide paper machines. It also had a new tissue machine that was installed in 2000.