DOWBRANDS IS DOWNSIZING GROUP

JAMES TENSER

INDIANAPOLIS -- DowBrands here said it will cut the size of its trade marketing group almost in half this year, while stepping up its account-specific activities with supermarkets.

It will accomplish this by moving greater account authority out to the field force, explained Rick Field, director of trade marketing.

"This year, our trade marketing group will be reduced from 14 to almost half," he said.

"DowBrands' trade marketing group has been active since 1990, so we are now entering our fourth year with the headquarters group. The timing is right to put more responsibility into the field," he said.

Field said DowBrands expects to assign nearly 40 people, 11 of which have gained experience from the company's headquarters trade marketing group, to field posts. He envisions more retailer activity being structured and designed in the field and "coming inside" for administrative support.

DowBrands expects to have full-fledged teams this year working with "somewhere between four and a dozen accounts," he said.

Like most product manufacturers, DowBrands had traditionally been organized around its brands such as Ziploc plastic storage bags. Company profitability was determined as the sum of all those brands, he explained.

"Now we are organizing around customers," Field said. "We will look not only at our brands, but at our [profit and loss] from each customer."