Clorox Co.'s Aberdeen bleach plant is already a corporate star and is one reason the long-moribund cleaning products company is no longer your father's Oldsmobile.

That star is likely to rise higher: The Oakland, Calif.-based Clorox introduced yesterday a splash-proof bleach called "Advantage" that analysts predict will be a big hit with consumers.

And Clorox officials say the new product should heighten the importance of the Aberdeen plant in Harford County. The plant has become a corporate model thanks to its employee-involvement culture and low-cost production -- and which just started making the new Ultra Liquid Clorox 2 bleach that's designed to clean colored fabrics.

The Aberdeen plant will start making late this year the new "Advantage Liquid Bleach" -- a liquid thicker than normal bleach that prevents the splashing consumers grouse about. The plant could add production lines and workers if the product flies as high as Wall Street and marketing experts expect. Modifications to make way for the new product will begin almost immediately, the company said.

"Aberdeen is our largest bleach-manufacturing facility in the U.S. and is the primary supplier for the entire Northeast," said Gil Roeder, a spokesman for Clorox at its corporate headquarters. "Therefore, it is a critical part of this major product launch around Clorox Advantage."

The number of new jobs, level of extra investment and potential for actual expansion of the factory on the 8-acre site will depend on whether the product jumps off store shelves, officials say.

Clorox shares surged $7.9375 yesterday to close at $121.75. That 7 percent jump outpaced the 1.75 percent bounce of the Dow Jones industrial average.

Analyst Wendy C. Nicholson, who follows the company for Salomon Smith Barney in New York City, says Advantage is the latest in a line of variations on the old standby Clorox liquid bleach which keeps fueling sales and market-share growth.

"Clorox continues to generate growth on the new products side while at the same time improving margins. This story is not over. There's more to come," said Nicholson, who rates the stock a "buy" and has a target price of $150.

Clorox liquid bleach -- developed in 1916, three years after the company was formed -- has been a tremendous consumer-product success: Market share has actually grown to 70 percent in the past few years.

Even so, consumers have had complaints: It smells bad, it leaches colored fabrics, it splashes back. New variations represent a thrust, parry and riposte: floral-fragrance bleaches; the new Ultra Liquid Clorox 2, whose peroxide base is colored-fabric friendly; and now, the thicker, splash-proof Advantage Liquid Bleach.

Those splashbacks sometimes have ruinous results. Just ask Eugene Fram, a marketing research professor with the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology College of Business. One night, his wife Elinore was dressed for an evening out, but needed to quickly bleach another piece of clothing to keep a stain from setting. The bleach splashed, ruining her evening wear.

The splash-proof Advantage "is 'Marketing 101' -- it directly solves a problem for consumers," Fram said. "It's product innovation -- a good changeup on a classic, staple product. That's hard to do."

The thickened bleach will be shipped to retailers in May to be on store shelves for the summer season of June and July, the peak selling season for bleaches, Clorox said. A national television advertising campaign will boost the bleach and detail the new product's benefits. The company expects it to command a price premium over other bleaches, though it declined to discuss pricing.

That's where the Aberdeen Clorox plant comes in.

Opened in 1990, the 360,000-square-foot factory is one of eight Clorox bleach factories in the United States. One of the few manufacturing facilities in Harford County, the Aberdeen plant has blasted through initial projections for the amount of bleaches and cleaners it would churn out.

Indeed, after a $25 million expansion announced last year that added 50 workers and brought the work force to 175, output at the Aberdeen plant is now 120 percent higher than initial targets, said Jim Berger, the factory manager.

If Advantage takes off, the Aberdeen plant could see even more action. That's likely, company officials agree.

"We'll add jobs to the degree to which consumers accept" the product, Berger said. "But test results certainly indicate that it's meeting pretty high acceptance."

Because the employees at the three-shift Harford County Clorox plant are busy "ramping up" production of the new Liquid Clorox 2 bleach, they probably won't start making Advantage until October. Nonetheless, company spokesman Roeder expects the factory to be the big player.

For instance, says plant manager Berger, production of Liquid Clorox 2 was consolidated at the Aberdeen plant from two other Clorox facilities.

The reason: Employees at the Aberdeen plant have a knack for improving productivity and cutting costs by finding ways to improve the manufacturing lines, often through automation. That makes the factory one of the lowest-cost producers in the Clorox chain. The Aberdeen plant mixes the bleach, molds and fills the plastic jugs, thumps them into cartons and ships them to retailers.

"There are good things" going on at the Aberdeen plant, Berger said.

Pub Date: 3/26/99