Andrew Jergens Co. is now Kao Brands Co., finally taking the name of its longtime Japanese owner. And it's aiming to beautify its own business with more premium-priced shampoos and lotions, aiming head-on at industry giants such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble Co.

"This is as tough as it gets," said Bill Gentner, president and chief executive officer of the company. "But we believe we have the brands and the technology to compete."

Starting as a soap maker in the 1880s, Jergens has been an icon of the region's industry - solid and dependable.

Its plant overlooks Spring Grove Avenue even as its business spreads throughout Europe, South America and Australia.

KAO BRANDS

Founded: 1882 by Andrew Jergens and Charles Geilfus. Original product: Coconut oil soap Owner: Kao Corp. of Japan. Purchased from American Brands Co. in 1988 Products: Jergens hand and skin lotions; Biore and Curel skin-care products; Ban deodorants and anti-perspirants; John Frieda hair-care products. Location: Spring Grove Avenue in Camp Washington Employees: About 600 globally, including about 400 in Greater Cincinnati Sales: About $700 million in North and South America, Europe, Australia and the Middle East.

Its namesake lotion products still are a standard globally. But Kao, the personal-care and chemical conglomerate that bought Jergens in 1988, wants to consolidate its worldwide units under one name and cast aside its reputation as a staid maker of staple products.

"We're trying very hard to throw that imagery off," Gentner said in a recent interview. "It's a complete change in mindset.

"We have completely changed, and we want to position ourselves as a premium beauty company in the mass channels."

On the upswing at Kao Brands is hair care. After it launched the Brilliant Brunette line under its John Frieda name last year, hair care accounted for much of its double-digit sales growth.

Lotions, which Jergens launched in 1901, are more aimed at baby boomers now, with anti-aging products at the forefront. Gentner said those lines, from Jergens to Biore to Curel, will see new product launches next year.

On the decline are the bar soaps that Andrew Jergens used as the foundation for building the company a century ago.

Gentner said bar soaps are moving to lowest-cost providers, which doesn't give marketers such as Jergens the profit margins they need.

"We're just leaving it (bar soap) in the marketplace to kind of live its natural life," Gentner said. "Personal cleansing has really become more of a commodity category."

Going with the trend

The shift is not much different from what crosstown giant P&G is trying to do with beauty-care brands such as Pantene and Olay. And it is clearly a trend with global marketers, who covet the higher profit margins that prestige shampoos and skin-care treatments bring.

P&G, for example, has taken Olay into the anti-aging age with its Olay Regenerist skin treatment. And Jergens is following the trend with its new "Ultra Healing Intense Moisture Therapy" lotion. With splashy marketing, new packaging and new science built into the product, it can charge higher prices than the basic moisturizing lotion of the past.

"You can't get by with just making a soap anymore," said Tom Branna, editor of Happi magazine covering the household and consumer products industry. "The money is in higher beauty-care products. The trend is, everybody's getting older and wants to look better. Just a regular moisturizing lotion isn't enough."

Sales of bar soaps are falling while sales of specialty soaps are rising, Branna said. And the biggest growth, he said, is in anti-aging treatments.

To compete, companies need new products. Kao, for example, said sales of products at the Andrew Jergens unit were flat.

That means an intense fight for space on grocery, supercenter and drugstore shelves. Bigger companies such as P&G and European giant L'Oreal carry huge influence with retailers. So Kao Brands, with total global sales of about $700 million in comparison to P&G's $51 billion, must pick its spots.

"It is difficult," Gentner said. "The challenge is to come up with innovation that is unique and differentiated. We have to put forward products that really stand on their own."

Brilliant Brunette, which drove most of the growth that Kao Brands saw this year, will be a model, he said. The idea is to target specific groups of consumers - in that case, brunettes - who will pay premium prices in mass stores such as Wal-Mart or Kroger.

Kao's strategy is similar to the bigger skin-care marketers, said Andy Schoenhoft, a buyer of beauty-care products at bigg's.

"Every time we turn around, there's some new kind of lotion coming out that Jergens either owns or has rights to," Schoenhoft said. "What they've done is they've bought into companies that have technology for innovation available, and then they've built from that.

"I can see with the consolidation, their intent is to step it up a little bit," he said.

An invisible change?

With the new identity, the brand names on the familiar bottles of lotion and shampoo won't change, so the corporate name change should be invisible to consumers. The change does tie the company's 400 or so Greater Cincinnati employees with their global owner, Gentner said.

About half of those employees work in the plant, with another 200 or so in research offices. Kao Brands also operates media, advertising and other offices in Stamford, Conn., near New York City.

The Kao Brands Co. covers North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Australia. About one-third of its total business is outside the United States, with most of the growth coming internationally.

It's only a part of Kao Corp.'s business, which ranges from food to detergent to chemicals to personal-care products. The name change unifies the former Andrew Jergens Co. with businesses in Europe that had been operated separately.

Gentner said there would be new product launches or new versions of nearly all of Kao Brands' products. Some will be cosmetic, such as the new Biore packaging. And some will follow the Brilliant Brunette model of new products.

But as with many beauty-care companies, much of the change is about image. And changing the image of a brand is an evolution, Gentner said.

"New products in this industry are really what drives growth," he said. "Over time, we're going to lift the imagery of all of our brands."

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com