The chore of dusting and cleaning has long been the bane of household cleaning.  People are always looking for better, and easier, ways to keep their homes dust free and looking “sparkling clean”.  The furniture care market caters to this need by helping to clean, dust and polish a variety of surfaces with relative ease.  The furniture care market certainly has come a long way from the waxes and pastes of the early 20th century.  The first major innovation in the market was brought through the launch of Mr Sheen in 1953.  Mr Sheen was the first polish launched in Australia in an aerosol format. This gave consumers the convenience to spray surfaces and wipe off with a cloth - prior to this, the only alternative was rubbing and buffing.  Over the years many advances have been made in both packaging and ingredients.  Today, the market ‘s main formats are aerosol, liquid and trigger, with aerosol’s still dominating the market with a 62% share.  There are a number of sizes and fragrances available, though the most effective tool of differentiation is efficacy. The retail furniture care market in Australia is currently estimated at around $14 million per annum.  That includes wood treatment products (30%) and Multi-Surface cleaners (70%).
	Mr Sheen, as a brand, is an all Australian legend, even though it has been owned by British company Reckitt & Colman since 1969. Since launch in 1953, Mr Sheen has established and maintained around 50% share of the total Furniture Care market.  More specifically, Mr Sheen competes in the Multi-Surface segment of the Total Furniture Care market, where the brand enjoys a dominant market share. Over the years Mr Sheen has maintained an extremely loyal customer base even in periods of no advertising or communication activity, particularly in the early 1990’s.   Much of this is due to strong brand loyalty of consumers in the market, as well as the exceptional ability of consumers to recall the Mr Sheen character and jingle. Mr Sheen’s success is evident in the fact that Australia is one of only two markets in the world where the brand has been able to successfully defend its market leader position against other global furniture care brands. Mr Sheen is now sold in the United Kingdom, Jamaica, and Kenya, where the brand is promoted by a cartoon character depicted as a World War 1 aviator. In New Zealand the Australian Mr Sheen character is used to promote the brand.  Reckitt & Colman also sells leading furniture polish products under different brand names, in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe it is known as Mr Min and in Argentina it is sold as Mr Frend.
	Samuel Taylor Pty Ltd first manufactured Mr Sheen in 1953.  At the time, Mr Sheen was a technological breakthrough, which completely revolutionised the cleaner / polish industry.  All other furniture polishes at the time were in the form of a wax or a paste which was labour intensive, requiring rubbing and buffing.  Mr Sheen, in an aerosol format, brought convenience to housewives, with a simple spray and wipe over with a cloth, surfaces were cleaned as well as polished.  Mr Sheen helped to pioneer the aerosol industry in Australia by introducing the pressure pack.  Mortein, another of the company’s brands, lead the way, with Mr Sheen and other brands created for aerosol application, such as Preen, Fabulon, Gossamer and Aerogard soon to follow.  Mr Sheen became a household name in the late 1950’s when the ad agency Hansen Rubensohn launched the Mr Sheen character and jingle.  The character was created by Vic Nicholson and Brian Henderson, and the jingle was written by Bob Gibson and Jimmy White.  In the 1990’s, little has changed, the Mr Sheen jingle remains, as does the Mr Sheen character, although he has been updated and made more contemporary over time.  His carnation has gone from his lapel, his cheeks are less flushed and he has slightly more hair. In 1969 British company Reckitt & Colman acquired Samuel Taylor Pty Ltd.  Mr Sheen was quick to spread it’s wings after the acquisition, being launched soon after in the United Kingdom and South Africa in the early 1970’s and more recently in New Zealand, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Jamaica and Kenya.
	Mr Sheen has changed little over the years - of course the packaging has been modernised for the 21st Century, and aerosol technology has developed in leaps and bounds but the main properties remain.  Mr Sheen is still the trusted household helper to make dusting and cleaning easier for many Australians.  The Mr Sheen range contains a unique blend of silicones, waxes and solvents that work to provide easy cleaning and polishing to help deliver a lasting protective shine.  Specially selected citrus and floral fragrances are used in the formulation to evoke the ambience of a freshly cleaned home.
	Mr Sheen was re-launched in October 1997 to bring modernity to a well liked brand that was starting to be seen as old fashioned.  This included a major face-lift to the packaging and a new direction in advertising.  The re-launch introduced an additional fragrance, pot pourri, and a new trigger format to attract a younger, more modern consumer to the brand.    New graphics moved away from the brown and yellow, to modern slim line cans with metallic inks in bright colours.  Mr Sheen himself was spruced up with a little more hair and a more modern slant, whilst still being easily recognised as Mr Sheen. New television advertising was created to support the re-launch that strongly reinforced modernity, cleaning credentials and the product’s versatility whilst hanging on to the key recognition points for the consumer, the character himself and the jingle.
	The Mr Sheen character has proved to be one of the most enduring and charming of Australian advertising creations.  The short, balding gent, dressed in a black suit complete with top hat and umbrella has appeared in all advertisements since the late 1950’s.  The character is said to have actually been modelled on a Samuel Taylor Pty Ltd employee at the time of the brand’s development.  In the early years, the main aim was to educate consumers about the extent of uses for Mr Sheen.  This was accomplished through a testimonial style campaign affectionately titled “Love letters to Mr Sheen”.  This involved printing letters of praise, and unique uses for the product from satisfied consumers around Australia.  The initial advertising was built on a platform of “Clean, wax and polish as you dust” which continued through to and during the 1970’s. In the 1980’s Mr Sheen was repositioned on a platform of “modern surfaces” in an attempt to modernise the brand that consumers described as old fashioned.  The repositioning represented a departure from Mr Sheen’s heritage of being “just” a wood surface spray.  Building on this strategy, Mr Sheen was re-launched in 1997. The 1997 re-launch of Mr Sheen saw television advertising for the brand revisit it’s foundations, and again aimed to educate a new generation of consumers of the myriad of product uses.  The advertisement saw Mr Sheen in a variety of outfits, from a disco king, an Elvis look-a-like to a wooden man, polishing various surfaces around the home.  The re-launch was supported with print advertising which gave helpful hints for use around the home, and a competition that asked consumers to come up with original uses for Mr Sheen.  The outcome was very surprising - people use Mr Sheen for practically everything, from shining the coat of their horse, polishing their car, to stopping their gate from squeaking. Throughout the years since the first Mr Sheen advertisements, the character and the jingle have been the constant element in all promotions.  This has helped to build enormous consumer recognition of the brand, with over 95% of Australians able to recognise the Mr Sheen character and jingle.  This undoubtedly has been a major factor in the consistent market leader position that the brand has enjoyed since its launch.
	Mr Sheen’s brand values are in essence encapsulated in its slogan “Sparkling Clean”.  Mr Sheen has, since its inception, promised to help clean, wax and polish as you dust. Unlike other competitors in the Furniture Care market, Mr Sheen has a personality, he is the “little helper” that makes it easier to achieve a sparkling clean finish to household surfaces.  This is reflected in all aspects of the Mr Sheen brand, with “friendly, trustworthy and reliable” being the core elements of the brand - apt attributes for any “little helper”.

MR SHEEN
		The Mr Sheen character is said to have been modelled on a company employee at the time of the brand’s creation.
		A radio station poll run prior to the 1998 Federal Election found overwhelming support for Mr Sheen when posed with the question “Which balding short guy with glasses has done the most for Australia - John Howard or Mr Sheen?”
		The Mr Sheen jingle has been requested to be performed by 5 amateur musical societies in the last year.
		Mr Sheen was updated for the 1990’s and beyond in the 1997 re-launch.  He was given a more modern appearance through the illustration style, taking the carnation off his lapel, adding a little more hair, and was made friendlier by widening his mouth.
		The Hell’s Angles motorcycle group once wrote a letter praising Mr Sheen for the way he cleaned their bikes.
		Some Sydney boarding schools issued a can of Mr Sheen as part of their orientation kit in the 1960’s.