How swine flu gave a helping hand to one company
Andrew Maher, Pharmaher, Duleek, Co Louth, with some of his children's supplements and anti-flu sprays.
FOR most companies, the advent of swine flu brought a potential logistical nightmare and an expensive headache; for Duleek-based Pharmaher, the advent of swine flu brought a 10-fold increase in sales of hand sanitiser 'No Germs'.
"We've been through MRSA, avian flu, SARS, they've all helped us," says Pharmaher's Andrew Maher, smiling at the irony as he recounts the first six years of the company he founded with wife Chiara.
Inspired by the Mahers' own fruitless search for a teething product suitable for their baby daughter, Pharmaher has amassed a portfolio of more than 200 products that it markets and sells across Ireland.
While the company has been steadily building since inception, the last 12 months have seen a 50pc rise in Pharmaher's sales and a near doubling of staff to nine, despite the inhospitable retail environment.
The first growth driver came before swine flu -- having built its foundations as a supplier to retail pharmacies, Pharmaher clinched deals to get a range of its products into Dunnes, Centra and SuperValu, adding hundreds of new sales points.
"Mass retail is emerging very strongly for us now," says Mr Maher. "It would be about 30pc of our sales."
When swine flu hit earlier this year, Pharmaher was in prime position to deal with the surge in demand for hygiene products. "The biggest increase would have come with children going back to school -- parents wanted them to have personal hand sanitisers," says Mr Maher.
"We also got a contract to install wall-mounted units for the DAA (Dublin Airport Authority) and supply personal hand sanitisers for all their staff -- that was a particularly big one."
Swine flu has also been helping with sales of another Pharmaher product -- children's gummy bear vitamin range 'L'il Critters', as parents turn to supplements to boost children's immune systems.
By far the biggest help for L'il Critters, however, has been a free national advertising campaign on UTV radio. The Northern Ireland broadcaster approached Pharmaher in the summer, having discovered the gummy bears themselves.
UTV wanted to do research to demonstrate the effectiveness of its new national advertising package and offered Pharmaher a month's worth of free advertising in exchange for publishable sales data.
Pharmaher agreed and UTV came up with a creative campaign around a catchy gummy bear song. The station played €116,000 worth of commercials during September.
The results were unveiled last week -- sales of Gummy Vites in September were up five times on August sales, and product-awareness levels soared among the target group of parents with young children, providing a solid platform for future growth.
Pharmaher is supporting that momentum by upping its own spend on its traditional promotions, through in-store displays, tastings and information leaflets. "We've spent 20pc more, but it's paid off," says Mr Maher.
Against a landscape of gloom in the retail sector and particularly in the pharmacy sector, Pharmaher's recent history is an impressive one. But what of the future?
Swine flu will, eventually, fade from people's purchasing agendas, as infection rates fall and vaccination rates rise. The L'il Critters are being well received now, but once the hype wears off and the recession deepens, will parents still spend €9 on a pack? And will the same frugality extend to the other 200-odd 'innovative' healthcare products, from detox cleansers to dry eye relief, that Pharmaher has brought to Ireland?
Mr Maher is confident. "The best investment people can make is in their health and wellbeing and that's the market we operate in," he says.
Marketing
On swine flu, Maher insists Pharmaher was marketing 'No Germs', long before the virus and will be there long after, unlike the "opportunists" who've gotten into hand sanitisers in more recent times.
The impact of recession on people's spending power draws a more considered response. For all the promotions Pharmaher carries out, it never discounts on products like Gummy Vites for fear of "cheapening the brand", which limits the firm's competitive options.
Mr Maher, insists, however, that there's a "real necessity" for the products that throng Ireland's pharmacy shelves, even though many of them had never been heard of a decade ago.
"Lifestyles are changing," he says. "If you look at children's vitamins, children's diets have changed so much that vitamins are something they really need."
Mr Maher is also confident of Pharmaher's ability to keep moving with the trends, and the firm is actively eyeing up a "number of lines" for 2010 launches.
"We identify a need and source a product to bridge that gap," he says. "We're take products from absolutely nothing to frontline positions."
Expansion
Pharmaher's planned expansion in 2010 is aided by the 10pc of costs eliminated after "sitting down and sharpening the pencil" at the beginning of this year.
The company also has a way to go with retailers -- its products are in Dunnes, SuperValu, Centra and Superquinn (the first retail deal in 2005), but Tesco and Spar are there for the taking. Pharmaher is also contemplating an online sales operation, looking at selling into Northern Ireland, and is preparing to develop its own products.
Next year will also see Pharmaher roll out L'il Critters in the UK, but an imminent sale is one thing that's definitely not on the cards.
"We've been approached on a couple of occasions to sell, but it's not something I'd want to do at this stage," says Mr Maher. "I want to grow Pharmaher -- there's plenty to go yet."
- Laura Noonan
Irish Independent
