Designer Interview: Jeffrey Neal
Jeffrey Neal Brave Soldier
By Marie Redding, Senior EditorJeffrey Neal, an avid mountain biker, often participated in racing events in Southern California. He was also a struggling screenwriter and worked as a salesperson for the well-known bike store in Beverly Hills named I. Martin Bicycle Imports. Then his career unexpectedly took a different path, leading him to a crash course in marketing and package design.
During a race in 1998, Neal crashed his bike, resulting in a severe scrape on his leg, known as “road rash” in the biker world. Hoping to prevent a scar, Neal went to visit Ezra Kest, MD, a dermatologist who was also a customer of the bike shop. Dr. Kest gave Neal a special ointment that he had developed for his patients recovering from surgery. It worked so well and was unlike anything else on the market that Neal knew he had to make it available to other mountain bikers. “Injuries are a common part of the sport. Customers in the shop were always asking me what they could use to prevent a scar, especially if they were models or actors who scraped their faces,” Neal says.
Partnering with Dr. Kest, Neal brought a supply of the ointment to racing events. He set up what became known as the “medic tent” where injured bikers would come to be bandaged after a crash. “A scrape can be more painful than it looks because it occurs right on the tips of the nerve endings in the skin,” says Neal. Since the abrasion stings when it is cleaned, Neal would tell bikers to act like a “brave soldier,” which became the name everyone started to call the ointment.
Crash Paks, a first-aid kit in an antistatic Mylar bag typically used to store computer parts. It contains 25 different items, including surgical gauze and Tylenol.
Soon, Neal packaged the ointment in jars with labels and sold it at bike shops and sports events along the West Coast. In 2000, Martin Feldberg, owner of the building and bike shop where Neal had worked, joined the Brave Soldier team and made the floor above the shop the company’s headquarters. “It is a scary thing to quit your job and work full time on a dream,” says Neal. After 18 months, Brave Soldier had a dedicated following among bikers, one who happened to be a writer at USA Today. After he wrote a story about the “magic ointment,” Neal’s world seemed to change overnight. Just about every consumer magazine wanted to feature the product, writing about how well it worked on everything from cracked heels to insect bites.
“Everyone was always asking us to create more products,” Neal says. First, the team developed a spray version of the ointment, and then shaving products. He partnered with two other marketing and advertising experts, Dan Ginsberg, who serves on the management board of Red Bull energy drink, and Leonard Pearlstein, formerly of Saatchi & Saatchi advertising. Through a friend of his wife’s, Neal met Robin Coe-Hutshing, owner of The Studio at Fred Segal in Santa Monica, CA. She began working with Neal as a consultant. “Robin is extraordinary,” he says. “A lot of doors opened for us because she became involved.”
Neal says he knew he had a great product, but admitted he needed help with the packaging. “I was selling 1 oz of ointment in a 2-oz jar and didn’t think there was anything wrong with that,” Neal explains. Coe-Hutshing advised the team to use attention-grabbing names that conveyed the product’s benefits. She was also instrumental in the development of the final formulations and their fragrances. The name Brave Soldier became the brand name. The team hired package designer Joanne Stabile, who gave the brand an identity by using silver laminated tubes with dark green and red labels.
By finding the right mix of talented people to collaborate with, Neal learned a lot about packaging in a short time. “The tubes now have nozzles so the ointment can be applied directly on the skin. Its orifice had to be just the right size so the product would flow easily,” Neal says proudly.
Another task Neal faced was ensuring the caps would stay sealed in high-altitude environments where many winter sports take place.
“Suppliers helped us a lot with some of the details,” Neal explains. Since a 25,000 minimum is a big risk for a small company to take on one new product, Neal uses the same package for a number of different SKUs. Products are differentiated by labels made by Artisan Screen (Azusa, CA). Neal also buys a lot of packages from McKernan Packaging Clearing House (Reno, NV). “They have an amazing amount of inventory and have been a great resource for us, primarily for sample presentations,” he says.
The original jar for the Antiseptic Healing Ointment that the company was founded on in 1998, and the new aluminum laminate tube that marked the beginning of the Brave Soldier brand in 2001.
Soon, major department stores wanted to sell the line, but Neal was told by the experts at Nordstrom that in order to merchandise it properly, its packaging had to be more upscale and gender neutral, since many women shop in the men’s department. “We weren’t exactly prepared, because we originally pictured the brand as an athletic line for men and women,” says Neal. “We were suddenly competing against large, well-funded men’s skin-care lines. We needed a graphic change.”
Neal went to DesignWorx (Lake Forest, CA) for help. The Brave Soldier brand was reinvented with the introduction of a clear PET flask-shaped bottle. The same package is used with pumps for a face cleanser and hand cleanser and with a silver cap for a shower gel. Vantage Packaging (Temecula, CA) also helped. “Becky Boyden at Vantage sourced a new tube supplier for our shave cream [launched in January]. This is our first package sourced overseas,” says Neal.
Neal adds that the greatest improvement to the line’s packaging was when the package for the aftershave and afterwaxing gel named Code Blue was changed. “It was originally in the same bottle used for Elmer’s glue, but you had to cut off the red cap to open it, and the cap was easy to lose.” The package was changed in January to a bottle with a more convenient resealable twist-top cap. “Since then, sales for Code Blue have increased dramatically,” Neal says.
Instead of biking, Neal’s weekends are now spent conducting training classes for the sales team at Sephora stores. He also still goes to racing events to promote the brand. “The key for us now is learning how to be successful marketers on a low budget,” he says. “I am happy it’s working and to still be growing the business.”