The Condom King

For the last twenty years, he has sold bread, paper towels, class rings, fire extinguishers, soap, and religious books. An ordinary salesman by day, Steve Finley canvassed the coasts showcasing his assorted wares door-to-door. By night, when others of his ilk were winding down from a weary day on the beat, Finley would slip off those salesman’s shoes, slide on his get-rich-quick thinking cap, and spend his off hours tinkering with new product proposals.

He tried his hand at developing a new panty hose line and it went nowhere. He bought a line of insect repellent and, hoping to grab the consumer’s eye, named it “Skeeter Beater. ” Another bomb. And then in 1980 Finley hit a homer. For as much as his last $100 would buy, he began purchasing bottles of discontinued suntan lotion from salvage brokers. Next he sold his home, bought a travel trailer, and headed to the sands of South Padre Island. From the back of his pickup truck, Finley sold so many bottles of lotion that he was able to develop four more tanning gel lines, including the popular Burn-Off. In 1986, his company placed ninety-fourth on the Inc. 500 list, and Finley managed to haul in a whopping $2. 5 million before selling out to a cosmetics company last January.

With those sunnyday profits lining his pocket, Finley started brainstorming again, certain that the world needed a cooler condom. “Rubber Ducky condoms arc hip, fashionable, ” says Finley. “Kids are having sex at a much earlier age now. With such a young audience you’ve got to make using condoms a cool thing to do and at the same time convey the message that not wearing condoms is just plain stupid. ” Finley believes that many larger condom makers use the wrong approach. “They use scare tactics by focusing on AIDS, death, and disease. But condom buyers, statistics show, are as young as sixteen years old, and at that age it’s hard for them to relate to death and dying. “

To appeal to youthful users, Finley’s Rubber Ducky boxes sport an animated duck giving a thumbs-up sign, and the condoms come in five different colors (the biggest moneymaker so far is “golden rod”). Couple that with peppy, quipping ad slogans like “The Duck Stops Here, ” “Rubber Ducky-The Original After Party Animal, ” “The Fit That Won’t Quit, ” and “Wear The One You Love. ” (He’s even got T-shirts and pajamas that feature the fun-loving duck. )

His latest venture has been very well received, Finley says. (He’s talking to Time magazine about a possible story on his company’s success to run sometime this summer. ) “On spring break from Padre to Daytona Beach, the crowds went crazy, ” says Finley, who claims that Rubber Ducky outsold the competition twenty to one. He’s crowing-or quacking-that his super sheaths are hotter than last year’s biggest spring break idol-Spuds Mackenzie.