ts. The company also has strong brand recognition in this business segment, where the Kimberly-Clark brands include Kleenex, Scott and Viva. This product category is where much of the company's paper supplies are used. Class II products accounted for 15 percent of revenues and 22 percent of profit for the company in 1994 (Jaffe, 1996, p. 1298).
Class III products include newsprint, printing papers, premium business and correspondence papers, specialty papers and related products; until late 1995, this segment also included tobacco papers, but the company divested those operations (Collins, 1995, p. C1). These products are sold directly to newspaper publishers and commercial printers and represent a significant departure from Class I and Class II products in their marketing orientation. Some items in this class are sold directly to users; other items go through paper merchants, brokers or sales agents. The company originally did not manufacture paper products in this category, but did purchase timberland to ensure paper supplies for its other products. This category grew out of the surplus of timber and paper capability which eventually developed, and the company now maintains 700,000 acres of timberland. In 1994, Class III products contributed five percent of the company's revenues and two percent of the company's profits (Jaffe, 1996, p. 1298).
Because Kimberly-Clark competes in a variety of markets (although each related to paper products in one way or another), the company faces competition from both large consumer companies (such as Procter & Gamble) as well as smaller niche marketers. For example, the company competes not only against Johnson & Johnson, but also against Pope & Talbot (and in all three product categories). This makes developing a unified marketing strategy challenging. The following chart identifies the major competitors in each of the product categories in which Kimberly-Clark competes:
Chief a...