The interview: SSL's Gary Watts
For self-conscious teenagers it doesn't come much worse than having your father become the world's biggest seller of condoms: 'Omigod - how gross is that?'
Shake-up: Garry Watts has led the push to target new groups of consumers.
But Garry Watts, chief executive of SSL International, which owns Durex and the footcare products maker Scholl, claims his older children thought it rather cool to wear the branded T-shirts he brought home.
Watts, 51, chats as happily about the fun quotient behind the newest of his Durex massage products and lubricants as he does about the problems of 'party feet' among fashion-conscious buyers of Scholl products.
He clearly gets a buzz out of running a business where he believes his two major brands could each one day command sales of $1bn(£660m) a year, way ahead of the combined £640m of revenues and nearly £90m of profit he is due to announce this week.
But when Watts joined SSL as finance director eight years ago, it was virtually finished - the result of two mergers that lacked industrial logic, coupled with some accounting practices that had attracted the Serious Fraud Office.
He says that as the financial results were delayed and SSL blasted through its banking covenants 'there was a real worry that the rug would be pulled'.
A ruthless sale of non-core businesses followed, but by the time he took the helm three years later he found there was 'a nice business underneath the messy overlay'. He did, however, have to battle against the board's instinct to cut costs, arguing that with enough investment Durex and Scholl were good brands that could be made great.
For a hard-bitten accountant used to a laser-beam focus on numbers, it was quite a change of attitude. 'I had to win hearts and minds,' he says. 'I needed to convince people that from now on we had to do things properly. I had to give the same message inside the organisation as externally so everyone knew where they stood.'
In his first 18 months, Watts changed two thirds of the top 50 people. 'We started with key country managers, often promoting bright, passionate people from within,' he says. 'But because our brands have a large image for their financial size, people can make a difference and that helped us to attract top talent from other companies.'
He encouraged a culture that allowed staff to show entrepreneurial flair and started to focus on product development to broaden the brands. 'A condom has a very particular purpose in life that can be satisfying in a very basic way, but we found there was a demand to enhance that, to improve pleasure, to play games - and consumers were ready to pay more for that,' he says.
The range of users targeted by Durex expanded enormously. 'We were building on the insight that people will pay for sexual wellbeing and so we have expanded into lubricants and other playful items,' he says.
In Europe, where the population is ageing, the company is taking Durex to couples, while in Asia young people are the target.
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There has been a similar renaissance with Scholl. Its sandal was well-known, but Watts realised that unless it became more relevant the brand would die with its customers. The Party Feet brand was developed internally and attracted a much younger audience with its range of sprays, creams and foams for tired feet.
Traditional customers are still catered for by its sandals designed for great comfort rather than as fashion accessories, and other items such as support hosiery and blister plasters, where SSL finds little competition.
Watts, who lives with his second wife, Nicky, and their ten-year-old daughter near Pitlochry, Perthshire, and commutes to offices in Manchester and London, has just added Russia's biggest condom brand to his portfolio and says he would love to expand in South America, Japan and Korea.
He also sees growth coming from technology and from developing new products for existing markets as well as from bolt-on acquisitions of complementary local brands that can be plugged into the distribution network that his two major brands now share so successfully.
'But it's my pipe-dream to add a third leg, another Durex or Scholl,' he says. 'If one of the big guys were to want to sell one of their top brands...' He trails off, abruptly becoming an accountant again and realising that in the inevitable auction for such a jewel, prices would rocket and little SSL would almost certainly be trampled in the heavyweight rush.
The spread of HIV and Aids has led to the company becoming more involved in health awareness campaigns in regions including Africa and South America. There is also a great awareness of issues such as sustainable production which, Watts points out, is commercially and ethically sensible.
Watts talks enthusiastically about exploring new relationships with his customers, possibly through internet sites, which he says could help make intimate connections that would work well with personal care products.
Watts mulls over these ideas, he says, while indulging his love of angling - the reason he lives in Scotland. 'Sharpening the saw - that's why I do fishing,' he says. And so far, his business drive shows no sign of blunting.
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