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There's a new trend, or I guess a new kind of product. I've been noticing lately, whole body deodorance with unbelievably long lasting since it's everywhere from my targeted ads online to the subways I ride in New York.
It's those spice Gentlemen's Total Body gives me.
Twy four seven freshness from pits to toes. It seems like almost every podcast I listen to has advertised it. My secret Sometimes I want to put deodorant on hard to reach places. That's why I use Aluminum Freeze Secret whole body deodorant, a whole body deodorant. I had never even heard of it a few months ago, and all of a sudden, it feels like it's everywhere for your pits, privates, boobs, guys, and faith.
These are supposed to be for all over your body, so not just an armpits, but in any other area of your body where you may have odor concerns.
Leslie Patten is a report on Bloomberg's consumer team, which means she also noticed something else about this whole body deodorant.
They are round double the price of a normal deodorant.
You've probably felt the pain of inflation, and you've also probably heard about shrinkflation, when companies respond to inflation by keeping their prices steady but making their products smaller.
The snack companies think you won't notice if they chase the size of the bag and put a hell of a lot fewer same size bag, put fewer chips in it. Here, No, I'm not joking. It's called shrinkflation.
But have you heard of upflation?
Upflation is taking an item that we've all probably known and used every day, finding a new use for it, and charging more for it.
This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder today on the show how to Spot upflation in pharmacies, supermarkets and wherever you shop and what this new trend means for the price of everything from tortilla chips to razors to deodorant.
I think upflation probably has taken hold over the last year or so, maybe even more in earnest over the past six months.
Bloomberg's Leslie Patten says the first example of upflation that she noticed was the same thing I'd seen, all purpose deodorant.
The deodorant is really what stood out to me as being the most prominent example.
So she started poking around and she noticed that there were even more examples of companies who had taken what seemed to be an everyday product, tweaked it in some way and started charging more for it.
Like razors, there are more razors now for different parts of your body. So if you're shaving your head, if you're a man who's looking to go bald, there's a different razor for maybe your head versus your face versus if you're a woman, your legs or your bikini area. There are different razors now for these different body parts. They're also different things to use, not just razors. They're derma planers now to remove the little hair, the fine hair that we all have on our face, if you're
concerned about that. They're also trimmers in case you don't want to totally shave an area of your body, but you just want to trim the hair there.
Yeah, they really want us to get hair free. It seems really obsessed with that part of our bodily functions. And speaking of bodily functions, Leslie also noticed maxi pads.
We've seen some interesting examples recently, so care Free is really targeting moms with this new product with their new maxi pads, and they're saying they're not just for like a few days of the month, but they're designed to be worn pretty much. Twenty four to seven are all the time to catch any sort of leak. So these new maxi pads, they want you to buy essentially more of them to wear all the time.
It's not just personal care products. Food companies are also up fleeting.
So the biggest one I've seen is really Pepsi pushing Doritos and tostitos as a side dish, So to go along with your dinner, you can make some sort of product, some kind of salad with doritos or toastitos or something like that.
So we've all heard of a grilled cheese, but have you heard of a Dorito's crusted grilled cheese.
Instead of breadcrumbs, we're using Dorita's Flaming Hot nacho cheese flavored tortilla chips. Here's a funny, creative way to make some delicious joki using Dorito's Flaming Hot nachos.
That's quite a rebrand chips as a side dish alongside your string beans. And mashed potatoes.
That's right. I mean the new occasions things cereal for dinner. Everyone you know has been pushing that forever. It's also a pretty budget conscious option. It's kind of how they're billing it too. But also I've seen Hagendaws bites, ice cream bites that are supposed to be a snack, not just for dessert.
Now, yeah, I was thinking cereal for dessert seems like more appropriate, and Dourrito's for dinner exactly exactly, But it's all well and good to notice the trend. As a consumer goods reporter, Leslie wanted to get to the bottom of why this was happening, and she says it has to do with two things. Inflation, of course, but also the continuing fallout from the pandemic.
I think a lot of that is just in response to the sales declines that really were exacerbated by the pandemic.
We all stopped buying as many personal care products during the pandemic when we saw fewer people, and perhaps also reevaluated our ideas of personal hygiene.
Razor blade sales had already been on the decline before the pandemic, but then the pandemic kind of accelerated that with people working from home not shaving as much. You know, beerds were trendy beforehand, but maybe even now more and not even a beer, maybe just some stubble. But the point is less razor sales.
Over the last four years, razor sales are down by more than twenty percent, shampoo sales fell by sixteen percent, and deodorant sales aren't what they used to be either. Does it feel like companies are creating a need for a product that didn't need to exist?
Absolutely, these companies are trying to create new needs and they've always done that to some extent. It kind of reminds me of a long time ago when companies were telling us about dryer sheets. You can use those shore to reduce static in your laundry and your dryer, but hey, throw them in your tennis shoes, your gym shoes too at the gym and they won't spell as bad.
But are any of us actually buying this literally or figuratively coming up after the break? What's at stake if all of us can't be convinced to have Dorito's for dinner.
So here's where things stand. Over the last four years, American consumers have been spending less and less on certain staples like razors in shampoo, and to combat declining sales, Bloomberg's Leslie Patten says companies have started tweaking old products, marketing them for new uses, and trying to upsell consumers on these supposedly new, more specialized, and more expensive products. It's a strategy also known as upflation.
The phenomenon is mostly a US or American one, but we are starting to see some examples pop up elsewhere. For example, Unilever, which is based in the UK, also has an all over body deodorant under its Dove brand, but it's just in the US right now, and then in China. I think people are really gravitating towards products that have various benefits where people can basically get more for their money. Top sellers include like a three minute miracle conditioner for damaged hair.
Is this working? Our consumers willing to pay more for these new products.
In some cases yes? In some cases I would say no or not yet. I think the example that stands out to me as being so far the most successful is probably the whole body deodorant.
Leslie went to Procter and Gamble, the company that owns brands like Secret Old Spice and Native, and ask them about how these new products are performing.
They've told me so far, it's selling above what they thought it when it launched earlier this year, kind of beginning of the year timeframe. It's under a Secret Old Spice in Native and they're doing well.
In other words, many of us do seem to be buying these more expensive products, and Leslie says that's a good thing for consumer companies like P and G and Unilever and others.
I think it's probably a strategy that they need to do. They need to have premium items, they need to have something that reflects what consumers want. And in some ways, yes, people do want premium items. They're willing to pay more for items that are more effective for them.
But is whole body deodorant actually so revolutionary, dermatologists told Leslie not exactly.
So for the most part, people don't necessarily need all over body deodorant. Dermatologists have told me it can be used if you have some like mild concerns about different odors on your body. It's not going to necessarily do any harm. But for the most part, anyone with moderate or severe body odor concerns should probably see a doctor.
Dermatologists skepticism aside, P and G has expanded the strategy beyond deodorant.
Head and Shoulders is another PNG owned brand, and you know, the company not necessarily Headed Shoulders, but it had been watching you know, US industry sales decline for a while now for several years, and through its research conversations with consumers and focus groups, the company learned that people didn't want to use its regular Head and Shoulders product every
day because they considered it too medicinal. Basically, it was something they were like, oh, this is too many chemicals to be putting on my body or in my hair on a daily basis. So they created a new version that's called Head and Shoulders Bear. It just came out this year bre and it only has nine ingredients, which is quite a bit fewer than like the twenty plus
ingredient list of its normal shampoo. But they wanted to address the issue that people were like nervous about putting something like this on their head on their body every day, and this is their way of basically addressing that.
So they made the Head and Shoulders product simpler pair down the ingredients. Is the product cheaper, No, it's not.
It's more expensive than the regular product. And this is a great example of upplation, right, So it's about twelve dollars for a bottle, give or take obviously at different places, but it's it's for sure more than the original version.
This success has been a relief for these companies and to investors who have been worried about their future sales.
I think what's on the line for these companies is they've been saying for years they can turn around sales volumes basically since sometime in twenty twenty two give or take a little bit with the various companies, And if they're not able to keep sales up and keep growth going without price hikes, then it takes away growth prospects for the company. And that's a big deal to investors.
That that's a big deal to Wall Street. So the market wants to see that these companies can keep sales going without the massive price hikes of the last few years. The way to do that is by increasing volumes which have been pressured.
But don't think this is the end of it. Even if upflation is successful at revitalizing stalled sales. Leslie says, there could be even more innovation on the horizon. We've had shrink flation, upflation. Is there another flation you're looking out for?
There's another one we have kind of noticed on the food side. We called it wasteflation, where people are just looking to waste a lot less.
Seems like a pretty noble impulse to me, but in some ways wasteflation could be bad news for companies since it comes from a place of wanting to wasteless.
There's also a growing movement and just more awareness about consumerism and waste. All of these things, or most of these things come in giant plastic containers. People want to lower their environmental impact.
You'll be shocked to discover that companies are already trying to figure out a way to capitalize on this too.
For example, in the frozen vegetable aisle, Canagra, which owns the Birdseyde brand, has this new take on their frozen vegetables, saying, why should you waste money on these fresh vegetables that you'll just end up tossing in the garbage. But frozen ones they never go back, so you don't have to throw them away. You don't have to throw away that like moldy piece of broccoli in the back of your fridge,
because the frozen ones don't do that. So with people looking to wasteless and save money in that way but also be more environmentally conscious, I think that's another move we're seeing companies respond to wasstflation.
I love that wasteflation. I'll be looking out for that as well. This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. My co host David Gura, is in Atlanta ahead of tonight's debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump hosted by CNN. We'll have an episode on that debate tonight, as well as coverage on Bloomberg TV, Radio, dot Com, and as always, the Bloomberg Terminal. This episode was produced by David Fox. It was edited
by Becca Greenfield and Shelly Banjo. It was mixed by Blake Maples. It was fact checked by Adrianna Tapia. Our senior producers are Naomi Shaven and Kim Gitttleson, who also edited this episode. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. The Cold Beamster bor is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take Wherever you listen to podcasts, it helps people find the show. Thank
you so much for listening. We'll be back tomorrow