BRIGHTON PARK — It's gotta be the beards. Although the neighborhood hasn't hurt, either.
The renowned, Brighton Park-made Smith Brothers Cough Drops brand, which had seen its sales languish since the '70s, is bouncing back with the help of some savvy marketing designed to "bring back the beards" of its classic logo and link them to the Blackhawks and their playoff beards.
"It's perfectly seasonally appropriate," said Steve Silk, chief executive officer of the company, which has rebounded nationally from its base of operations at 3501 W. 48th Place in Brighton Park. "We borrowed a little bit of beard equity," he added.
To that end, they'll drop the puck on cough and cold season by bringing the Blackhawks' defenseman Duncan Keith to the Wicker Park Walgreens Monday at 2 p.m., following the success of a similar event last year featuring Hawks goalie Corey Crawford at the Downtown Walgreens at Randolph and State streets.
"Last year, they were lining up at 7:30 in the morning," Silk said. "It proved to be the largest single event in Walgreens store history."
This year, they'll be unveiling a new twist on the classic logo, with the Smith Brothers sporting hockey sticks and sweaters. They'll stay close to the Hawks during the season with six "Beard Nights," as well as a "Beard Cam" superimposing beards on fans' faces on the scoreboard TV during breaks in play.
At the same time, they'll also expand the marketing campaign Monday into the hockey hotbeds of New York City and Boston.
It's all part of Silk's strategy to return the brand to dominance in the cough drop market, a spot it held as recently as the '70s.
Oddly enough, Chicago was the site of both its crash and its revival.
As Silk explained it, Smith Brothers was owned by Warner Lambert until that corporation bought Halls and moved it to the United States in the early '70s. The Federal Trade Commission demanded that the firm divest of Smith Brothers as part of the deal.
"They tried to sell it to somebody who could do them as little damage as possible," Silk said, noting they arrived at Chicago's F&F Foods. That company moved manufacturing from the firm's birthplace in New York to Brighton Park, but in the process "pretty much left the brand dormant."
Smith Brothers was usurped on store shelves by Halls and Ricola until Silk arrived at the firm three years ago, assigned the task to return Smith Brothers to prominence.
It's his area of expertise, as one publication called him a "turnaround maestro and patron saint of lost businesses," after he previously did the same with Jell-O, Lea & Perrins Worchestshire Sauce and Hebrew National Hot Dogs.
"I've done it before, so I have the same instinct," Silk said. "The difference here, though, is the product wasn't on the shelves.
"My perception was the brand was very, very much alive," Silk said. It seemed easy: revive the classic Smith Brothers logo, which had somehow been discarded along the way, and return the brand to the public consciousness, which it had never really left.
See the Smith Brothers references in "The Simpsons" episode "Oh Brother, Where Bart Thou?" and the Adam Sandler movie "Jack and Jill" as examples.
Yet "it wasn't easy," Silk added. "Little did I know that, for all intents and purposes, they hadn't been on the shelves in 20 years."
In the intervening decades, Smith Brothers had been totally blocked out by Halls and Ricola. So the first job Silk faced was to get retailers to restock the brand.
"We're not here to talk about nostalgia," he said. "We're here to talk about innovation."
He plowed $8 million in capital back into the business to "dramatically upgrade our product quality" through improvements at the Brighton Park factory, with Silk saying they "rebuilt half the building and prettied up the other half."
They restored a revised version of the old logo to packaging, but also created the first day and night cough drops, taking an idea from cough syrups, and the first 55 percent honey drop, infusing enough honey in it to put Halls, Ricola and even Burt's Bees to shame. At the same time, they never neglected the traditional Wild Cherry cough drop, first developed in 1948, which Silk said remains the firm's top seller.
Silk could have moved the company anywhere to stage that revival, but decided that Brighton Park was the best place to turn things around.
"It's been here for decades," he said. "It has many employees, to whom we're very loyal. It's a neighborhood and a community, and we're comfortable with that."
The firm employs as many as 300 workers in what Silk allows is a seasonal business, although he's also working to add products with a year-round appeal such as "wellness" supplements including calcium and the like.
"The costs and the risks of moving are real, and the distraction of moving a company to a completely different place also carries risk," Silk added. "Our attitude, rather, has been to refurbish the facility and reinvest in the company right here."
Home, of course, is also where the Hawks are, and that has played into both the seasonal aspect of the business and the refocusing of attention on the beards of Andrew and William Smith.
They inherited the successful "cough candy" business from their father in 1866, but according to the company history, in the face of competitors trying to rip them off under names like "Schmitt Brothers" and "Smythe Sisters" and even other bald-faced "Smith Brothers," they had to come up with something that set them apart as the originals, and so they arrived at the distinctive logo with the brothers' mid-19th century beards.
It was one of the first trademarks explicitly labeled as such, to the point where some customers eventually took to calling William "Trade" and Andrew "Mark," because those were the words alongside their pictures.
Actors portraying William and Andrew will be there, in character, at the Wicker Parker Walgreens Monday, along with Keith, as Silk tries to have Smith Brothers follow the Blackhawks' path to renewed and continued success.
According to Silk, sales have gone from next to nothing to $3 million last year, $6 million to $10 million this year and a projected $20 million next year, as they launch a nationwide TV campaign this fall built on their local marketing in Chicago, New York and Boston.
It's a long hockey season and a long cough and cold season, but the way Silk sees it, the Smith Brothers embark on it with their playoff beards already in place.
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