Men join Tupperware’s party
TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: What’s better than Thanksgiving dinner? Thanksgiving dinner the next day. And the next day. Mmmm… A turkey sandwich, a side of re-heated apple pie, green beans in a Tupperware bowl.
Ah yes, Tupperware, the king of leftovers. Did you know those plastic containers have been around for 61 years now? I know it sounds strange now, but Tupperware parties gave women job opportunites they didn’t have before.
But like everything else, the Tupperware business has changed. For one thing, more men are selling it. Sean Cole has our story.
SEAN COLE: Not only are more men are selling Tupperware these days. Last year, at least three of the top 10 sellers in the country were men. Including this guy:
JOE HAGEN:
The main reason that I even said I would sell was actually for the discount.
His name’s Joe Hagen. And he’s always been thrifty. So when he found out — at a Tupperware party — that sellers get 35 percent off all their cake-takers and modular-mates, he was hooked. And then Tupperware came out with a cookware line.
JOE: And being in the restaurant business for 10 years, I was like, “I have to have that cookware.” You know? And so all of a sudden I’m like, “OK, well, I gotta start having parties and I gotta have friends over and try it out.”
He was kind of a natural — enticing people with door prizes, showing them a good time. And, in a way, none of this is really that surprising. It’s 2007. Men cook, women run for president. And yet, Tupperware as a company didn’t seem to know that. Joe says a lot of the documentation he got as a seller referred to him as…
JOE: . . . She . . . her. Even when I filled out the first agreement it said “her.” You know? So I crossed all this out in my agreement and put “his” and so forth.
But Tupperware’s catching on. At its annual jubilees, it’s made a few adjustments for men who win sales prizes.
RICK GOINGS: We did recognition on stage. In the past it was usually necklaces and crowns, and we said “Wait a minute!”
This is Rick Goings, the CEO of Tupperware:
GOINGS: They still like crowns by the way but they want a king’s crown. No tiara!
Goings told me less than 1 percent of Tupperware’s global sales force — globally, they’re in 100 countries now — are men. But the fact that he even mentioned a whole number is a big change from the ’50s. And he says the nature of the job has changed, too.
GOINGS: Now we’ve reengineered the opportunity so that you can not only hold parties but you can, in fact, build your own sales organization. So that’s attracted lot of men to the business as well.
Not only that but every seller has her — or his — own website now. And about a year ago not very many sellers were taking advantge of the Internet yet.
JOE: A lot of women didn’t see that as a revenue for sales.
But Joe Hagen did.
JOE: I thought, “You know, I could start doing advertising and getting people to go to my site.” Well, I had no idea of the impact.
He put a sidebar ad up on Google and started pulling down $20,000 and $25,000 a month.
JOE: A month.
He’d go to Tupperware events and everyone would be buzzing about him.
JOE: Like, “How is he doing that? He’s a guy. How can he do that?”
And then more people started doing it. And more. And then another guy started trying to push his fellow Tupperware sellers out of the market. Joe says the guy basically stole their Internet customers and fraudulently drove up their advertising costs.
JOE: And I spoke to one woman — she ended up paying $11,000 in one week from abuse that other consultants were doing to her. You know it became very much a war ground.
Tupperware ended up changing the rules for online advertising, which ended the war. Nonetheless, the unethical guy was the number one seller last year. And Joe was number two. Men have arrived in Tupperland. Even the rapper Ice T, one of the toughest guys in the world, held a Tupperware party for charity a while back. And then he went on late-night TV and talked about how much he loved it. Rick Goings was watching.
GOINGS: And then he kept sayin’ “And Tupperware is O.G.” And I turned to my wife and I said, “Honey, what in the world is O.G.? And then I find out it’s O Gangster.
COLE: No, it’s Original Gangster.
GOINGS: Original Gangster. ‘Scuse me, how did you know that?
Well, under the circumstances, I think a better question is: How did you not know that?
In Boston, I ain’t no superhero. I ain’t no Marvel comic. But when it comes to game, I’m atomic and droppin’ straight point-blank… [Ice T song] Original Gangster.
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