Sam Graci swears he never intended to profit from his invention.
A health researcher and consultant based in B.C., Graci spent five years and $650,000 of his savings developing Greens+, a powdered food supplement containing essential vegetable nutrients – without even once attempting to sell a single bottle.
‘People thought I was crazy,’ says Graci. ‘I never developed it to be a commercial product. I developed it [as] an extension of my beliefs and my lifestyle.’
There was, however, no stopping Greens+. No sooner had Graci made the product available through physicians in 1995, than retailers began scrambling to get their hands on it.
Since then, the product has evolved beyond exclusive distribution through health food stores to command space on the shelves of such mass retailers as Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaws.
One serving of Greens+ is said to be equivalent to six servings of organic vegetables or organic salad. Manufactured in B.C. and distributed by Toronto-based EHN, the brand claims a 50% share of the $25-30 million ‘green food’ category it helped to create.
Its success was spawned in large part by word of mouth. Having sunk all of his money into product development, Graci had precious little to invest in marketing. Indeed, there was no formal advertising strategy at all until 1998, when the decision was made to expand distribution into mass merchandise, grocery and drug stores.
With consumer interest in natural supplements growing dramatically, Graci explains, Greens+ needed to be in channels other than health food stores, which capture just 10% of Canadian shoppers.
‘It wasn’t that we wanted to go mass market,’ he says. ‘But for the sake of our commitment to helping people live happier and healthier lives, we couldn’t continue to impede the progression of consumer demand. We were not allowing Greens+ to be available to the majority of the public.’
Mass retailers, for their part, were keen to get the product on their shelves. The popularity of Greens+ in health food stores had attracted their interest, recalls Stewart Brown, president of EHN – and they wanted a piece of the action.
EHN actually resisted their blandishments for a year or more, he says. ‘But we wanted to increase awareness of the product. We felt that we had created the category, and we didn’t want to be the second player. We had to take it to a larger audience.’
Shoppers Drug Mart began carrying Greens+ a year ago. It can now be found on shelf at Loblaws, Guardian, Pharmasave and Pharma Plus stores.
To build further awareness in the mainstream market, the company also launched an outdoor campaign in Metropolitan Toronto last fall – the first significant advertising initiative in the history of Greens+.
The campaign, created by The BrainStorm Group, ran on billboards throughout the city in October and November. The boards featured the Greens+ bottle set against the image of rolling countryside, and the slogan ‘A perfect source of nutrients for a not-so perfect diet.’
Rob Froese, executive vice-president of Toronto-based BrainStorm, says that outdoor offered the most cost-efficient means of reaching the target audience in sufficient numbers. The challenge was coming up with copy that wouldn’t offend this broad audience.
‘People are allergic to being told what to do,’ he explains. ‘So we can’t imply that they don’t take care of themselves. But the one thing people will admit is that their diets are less than perfect.’
In addition to Greens+, EHN distributes a number of other supplements and herbal remedies, including Grapes+ (an anti-oxidant agent), PMS+ (which reduces the symptoms associated with PMS) and Sleep+ (an herbal sleeping aid).
While EHN maintains a strong commitment to health food retailers, Brown says the company will pursue as many channels of distribution as possible for its complete product line.
New advertising campaigns are expected to roll out in the spring and fall of this year.
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