When business historians map some of the most curious and important marketing innovations of the 20th century, they may take note of this. On a winter's day in 1980, the two friends came down here with a tub of Budweisers on ice and mixed an enormous vat of salad dressing. "We didn't have anything to stir it with," Mr. [A. E.] Hotchner says, "so [Paul] Newman went to the river outside the barn and got his canoe paddle." He was not pleased. "Newman came back and started churning, and I said: 'You're out of your goddamned mind. That paddle isn't sterile. Nothing is sterile.' But he didn't care. And, fortunately, after we gave it to the neighbors as gifts, no one died."
Some of these adventures are described in a book by Mr. Hotchner and Mr. Newman called "Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good," published this month by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday.
The book details their business and philanthropic successes over the past two decades. But it barely touches on how Newman's Own, started as a joke, then run as a circus, and now in the hands of skilled executives, has recently become a mainstream fixture, procuring lucrative alliances with McDonald's and Costco.
The private company makes a line of foods including lemonade, popcorn, salad dressings and spaghetti sauce, and, as the labels say, all profits go to charity. The amount should reach $18 million this year; it adds up to some $150 million over the company's 21-year history.
Mr. Newman's celebrity tends to obscure how revolutionary his company has been in forging a new kind of conscientious consumerism over the past decade. In that time, buyers have demonstrated a fierce brand loyalty that has fascinated many larger corporate players at the same time that it has eroded their market share.
During the past few years, some marketing scholars have taken note of the phenomenon, leading them to research how Mr. Newman's company and others in the food business have used philanthropy, "cause marketing" and a message of corporate social responsibility to strategic advantage.
To C. B. Bhattacharya, a marketing professor at Boston University who led a three-day conference in September on the topic, part of the answer is that consumers are increasingly looking for deep and meaningful relationships in what they buy. "And the best companies," he adds, "like Newman's Own, like Stonyfield Farm, like Patagonia, are ones that truly understand this kind of identification from the customer."
The Newman name got me to try the salad dressing, but the quality of the product is what keeps me as a customer.
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