When Richie Harris first tried to interest U.S. distributors in selling the first silicone lubricant more than 10 years ago, they laughed him off. Sure, it was nice...but it was deemed too nice for consumers.
"It was three times the price of what was in stores," says Harris, CEO of operations in North and South America for Pjur and European sister company Lucom. "So I went store to store and circled all the cities in the country that were a million people or more and put it in about 300 stores myself. And amazingly, it retailed. All people had to do in the stores was put a drop on people's fingers and explain to them that they needed five times less and that there was no gooey mess. And boom, you converted people. It was like a light bulb went off."
It all started in 1991, when Harris notes that the product thrived in an underground gay market in a small German town after gay chemists working for the medical industry invented it for microsurgery using medical-grade, super-processed silicone. With only water-based products around at the time - and with silicone staying slippery forever - it was revolutionary. And it caught on like wildfire, he adds.
"Our product is not adult-specific. When we created it, we created the word ‘Bodyglide,' which has now been copied," Harris says. "We positioned our product to be not just a personal lubricant, because pure silicone is much more than that. We positioned it as a multi-use product. You can use it for skin conditioning and moisturizing. It has almost a medicinal quality and helps people who have severe skin ailments."
Eros was the first formula and remains the top-selling one in the United States. As sales grew, Harris notes they decided to spin off the product with a lighter, less-viscous formula. Soon, a light version of Eros was added, and a Basic version that was less expensive. They have since been joined by the Pjur Original (the same formula packaged for the straight market), Pjur Aqua, and Pjur Woman families, with creams and gels in the mix.
"We are the largest distributed lubricant company in the world, with distribution in over 57 countries, which is an amazing story for a couple of guys who had never really been in the adult business before," Harris notes. "We are one of the highest-emulated lubricants that I've seen.... Some have made a good effort to latch on to us by putting their product into a groovy black bottle. That was another thing that set us apart: Everybody else had kind of blasé bottles; we put ours in a sleek, all-black bottle, so when you looked at it on the shelf, it stopped you."
The company also has the successful Med Clean spray and towelettes. "We were laughing at the toy cleaning market when we were reading the back of toy cleaners. It would say ‘After cleaning toy, rinse toy with water.' That was really silly, that you had to clean a cleaner," Harris says. "We're not just positioning it as a toy cleaner, but as an intimate cleaner you can use around your hotel room or bathroom, on your baby. It has a much broader use."
The company has also expanded into sexual-enhancement products, with the recently released Analyse Me! being the first lidocaine-free, benzocaine-free anal comfort spray; Superhero, a penis spray to reduce hypersensitivity; My Spray, a woman's stimulation product; and Backdoor, a lubricant targeted to the gay market for anal sex. "A lot of people make anal lubes, but they don't put anything in it that makes them anal. It's really just a thicker lube, something that's in their line anyway, and they just slap ‘anal' on there to try and get some business. This actually has chemistry that works because of one of the ingredients."
The quality has caught not just the attention of consumers: Pjur has positioned itself with Titan Media and Lucas Entertainment for video exposure, and has garnered notice from Men's Fitness and SELF magazines as the top brand. Additional praise has come from the pages of Men's Health and Details magazines.
Harris notes they do a lot of gay consumer shows to stay in touch with customers, as well as in-store training to help educate sellers. There are also plans for 150 Pjur shop-in-shop systems to debut by year's end.
"Feeling is believing, and we go around the country - store to store, manager meeting to manager meeting - and put blindfolds on people... We have a 98 percent success rate in doing that. Feeling the difference is key; talk is cheap," Harris says. "We won't just do a product because somebody else is doing a product. There has to be a real need for it, and it has to be something different, or we won't introduce it."
CONTACT INFO: www.pjurusa.com; (877) 628-7100; [email protected].
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