Focus On: Time to shine for Hyland's
About 50 years ago, officials at Hyland’s made the decision to put all their eggs in one basket: natural and homeopathic medications.
Today, as more and more consumers look for safer medications for their families, many are turning to Hyland’s as the source for natural and homeopathic products. The results for the 117-year-old company have been outstanding, with company officials noting that sales have grown at solid double-digit annual rates for nearly all of the last two and a half decades.
Not bad for a company that was started by eight physicians in a basement in downtown Los Angeles in 1903.
The bottom line is that as demand for natural and homeopathic medications rapidly increases, Hyland’s, which is still based in Los Angeles, has positioned itself at the forefront of many of these segments. In fact, Les Hamilton, the company’s president, proudly talks about how Hyland’s is a national leader in sales in a number of areas, including internal analgesics — leg, oral pain-baby and earache relief, as well as pediatric and baby cough-cold.
“I think a big key to our success is the fact that we develop and tailor products to consumer needs,” said Hamilton, who joined the company in 2011 after seven years with The Emerson Group and 10 years at Target. “We offer natural and homeopathic products that are safe and effective for people from the cradle to the elderly. Consumers have come to understand how we go to market and how we can address so many ailments — from dealing with leg cramps to earaches and cough and cold issues for babies — naturally.”
Today, privately owned Hyland’s offers about 380 SKUs with around 75 dedicated to the mass retail industry. In addition to the categories listed above, Hyland’s also is a major player in the adult analgesics, sleep and stress, first aid, and topical analgesics segments, though the company may be best known for its wide array of products for babies and its 4Kids line for children between the ages of 2 and 12 years old.
There is little doubt that Hyland’s also is benefiting from consumers’ growing interest in natural and homeopathic medicines for many ailments. Over the last two decades, industry officials have observed a huge increase in demand for these products as consumers ask for alternatives to traditional products.
Retailers have responded by including more natural and homeopathic options in their healthcare mix, though sometimes placing these items separate from traditional brands. “We are happy to see more retailers getting involved with natural and homeopathic products, but we think that retailers can maximize sales by placing these products together so that consumers can evaluate the different items and choose what they want to purchase,” Hamilton said. “Moms like to shop by condition, so we think it makes a lot of sense for retailers to place our products together with other products from the same segment.”
It also shows just how important education is to the future growth of the category. Hamilton said that Hyland’s places a great emphasis on educating retailers about how to market and sell natural and homeopathic products, including conducting headquarter and store seminars with retailers to teach them about the items and how best to merchandise and sell them.
The company also offers H2U, a comprehensive homeopathic university that allows retailers to gain essential knowledge about treatment options and learn best practices in selling the products. It also is designed to educate retailers about how to provide informed options to customers and to be recognized as a well-informed resource on homeopathy in the process.
Educating the consumer also is a big and extremely important part of the strategy to increase natural and homeopathic sales, in general, and make consumers more aware of the many categories that Hyland’s does business in. While more people are interested in these products than ever before, Hamilton said that there is still a lot of work to be done teaching them about the difference between them and traditional items.
“Our goal is to get consumers to try our products for a specific ailment,” he said. “Once they do, and they realize that they worked, we are convinced they will keep coming back to our brand, time and time again.”
To that end, Hyland’s brought in a new vice president of marketing about a year ago to help bring the brand to the forefront. It launched its first TV advertising campaign in five top markets — Minneapolis, Chicago, northwest Arkansas, St. Louis, and Charlotte, N.C. — in October. “We want to get our name out there,” Hamilton said. “We want consumers to see who we are and what we do and be top of mind when they are looking for products to help them feel better.”
Formed as Standard Homeopathy Pharmacy in 1903, George Hyland purchased the company in 1910. Thirteen years later, Mr. Hyland hired Cecil Craig and put him in charge of the manufacturing lab. Craig developed an aspirin for children, a formulated pink aspirin tablet that dissolved almost instantly and is the precursor for Hyland’s quick-dissolving tablets, a hallmark feature of many of the company’s top-selling medicines today.
Craig made the decision to manufacture and distribute mostly homeopathic medicines in the 1960s. “Our big jump in sales came in the mid-1980s with our first foray into mass market retailers,” Hamilton said. “We started to move from specialty stores and into more traditional outlets. That really fueled our growth. Walmart was actually our first major retailer when they started to stock our products in the early 1990s.”
Hamilton said he is excited about the future of the company. While noting that Hyland’s is always looking at new categories to enter, as well as expanding existing segments, he said that maintaining a relationship with retailers and consumers remains at the forefront. “We launched five new adult pain products in the summer and two natural arthritis products with many more to come in various categories in the foreseeable future. That shows our commitment to new items,” he said.
“But it is the relationships we have built over these many years that mean the most to us. We have been around for a while, and it is that trust we have made with the trade and with our consumers that has put us in this position. The bottom line is that we deliver what we say we are going to deliver. We are dedicated to making safe, effective and natural healthcare solutions easily accessible to all.”