WD-40 Brands

1061 Cudahy Place
San Diego, CA 92110-39
Phone: (619) 275-1400
http://www.wd40.com/









Insights

WD-40 Company is a global consumer products company. Their brands include multi-purpose lubricants WD-40® and 3-IN-ONE®; heavy-duty hand cleaners Lava® and Solvol®; and household products X-14®, 2000 Flushes®, Carpet Fresh®, Spot Shot® and 1001®.

The consumer-facing product sections of the web site are treated in two completely different ways. Information on the signature brand WD-40 builds loyalty and repeat traffic by enabling user-generated content. Thus, it becomes an "active" web site. The household brands are represented, too, but these pages take a more traditional and passive "read-only" approach to visitor outreach.

Specifically within household brands, Spot Shot presents features and benefits, but no "stories" from customers in their own words. Compare this to those web sites which enable and encourage users to post personal views about these same household brands. For example, Epinions has consumer ratings and reviews of Spot Shot coming directly from consumers. Shouldn't Spot Shot's web site do the same — enabling consumers to recommend uses and the value of household products to other consumers?

As a result, WD-40 Company's household brands earn a rating of 60 out of a possible 100, in large measure, because they do not actively build a relationship with the market. These products miss an opportunity to use consumer input to articulate, quantify and validate their respective value propositions.

Research by Turner DeVaughn demonstrates that 90% of companies miss the same opportunity, and suggests that lower growth rates for products may result. Peers alone average 63; identified using a Google "related" search: 3M, Timken and Kimberly-Clark. All companies benchmarked by Turner DeVaughn average 64. One can conclude that household products are performing 3-4 basis points below average, and significantly below WD-40.

Each household brand has a different background color treatment, but the navigation and address (URL) are clearly WD-40-driven. The user interface of the entire site is dominated by the blue and yellow colors of the WD-40 package. In comparision to one of the peers Kimberly-Clark, each of their brands has its own web site.

Sections for each of the household products could be modeled on spirit of the WD-40 section — which is all about users and what they want and need from the product. The Fan Club is a way for consumers to generate content — in the form of their favorite stories about the value they derive from WD-40. Downloadable Fun Freebies, an e-TIP of the Week and their e-Newsletter build loyalty. The one flaw with this section is that it does not share navigation with the rest of the site.

The primary reason why the brand won the Customer Advocate Award is that the company pays attention to — and understands — its WD-40 market. Through ethnographic research, WD-40 Smart Straw™ creates enough value to justify an additional $1 per can. The value proposition is not articulated.  Only by interacting with the market was the company able to understand what people wanted and what those feature enhancements were worth. This research included consumers and the professional market, such as automobile mechanics.

Professionals have good reason to come back to the site frequently. The Job Site offers tips for pros that they can use on the job. News they can use. Clearly, WD-40 is a world-renowned product unlike any other and has inspired professionals and consumers to share their experiences with one another. They have been talking about the product for over fifty years — and the web site taps into that. This is why the overall site is rated 90 out of a possible 100 basis points — failing only to present its value proposition. This is far above a peer average of 63 and puts WD-40 among the highest-performing brands in the U.S.

People are already talking about the household products as well, but the individual sections on the site do nothing to encourage those conversations to attract new consumers — to build a larger community. This is something that DialogueTDN can make happen immediately. It would enable each product to quantify its own respective value proposition, introduce more proof points and and enrich the content of customer stories.

Benchmark

Company name Rating i ii iii
WD-40 Brands 20 10 20
3M Worldwide 20 0 0
Kimberly-Clark 20 10 0
Timken 20 0 0
Average 20 5 5

Last updated: Friday, December 14, 2007