Rohm & Haas is currently the market leader in metalworking fluid biocides for large scale centralized systems. To expand the company’s domain expertise to the smaller individual systems used by independent and small scale shops, Rohm & Haas introduced the Kathon MWX product this year. The first five months of the roll out of this product has been a dismal failure ? given a first year target of 1,350 boxes (approx $220,000 revenue ) the company has sold 74 boxes in five months. The market for biocides for smaller, individual fluid systems is significant and not satisfied by existing products. Kathon MWX offers a compelling value proposition to end consumers, but the current marketing plan did not accurately predict the buying behaviors of these consumers, their knowledge of biocides in general, and the misaligned incentives within the current distribution chain. Within this document we present a new marketing plan that will address these issues and get sales of Kathon MWX back on track. Kathon MWX is currently selling only 13% of the expected volume of Kathon MWX. This clearly cannot be attributed to slow adoption in the market place and points to several key issues that need to be addressed. Rohm & Haas has approached sales and marketing of the Kathon MWX similar to the existing, and very successful, Kathon 866 MW. Despite the similar name and roles as biocides, these two products are marketed to very different consumers.
Both the Kathon MWX and Kathon 866 MW are superior products on the market within their segment and can help consumers extend the life of their metalworking fluids. A longer fluid life decreases the cost of replacement ? both labor and materials costs ...