Have a headache? Take a powder! Fans in South boost Goody's sales

Goody's saw a 17-percent increase in sales while others stayed flat or fell.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Technology that decades ago transformed powdered painkillers into tablets shoved medicines like Goody's Headache Powder to the back of store shelves and seemingly out of the American lexicon for good.
Yet Goody's continues to sell in the South, where the tradition has died hard and kicked up sales in an analgesics market that has been static for years.
Goody's saw a 17-percent increase in sales between 2000 and 2002, even as sales for other painkillers -- many with hard-to-open bottles and cotton on top -- remained flat or fell.
Millions in sales
Retail sales for Goody's last year totaled $48.5 million in the Southeast, a 1-percent increase over 2002, while sales for other painkillers in the same region dropped 1.5 percent, according to GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, the Pittsburgh-area company that owns the brand.
There are a number of reasons why Goody's not only remains on shelves from as far west as Texas, but also maintains a fiercely loyal following among people willing to pour the bitter powder from a folded glassine wrapper onto their tongue for relief.
"It is almost a cult product down here, that's true, but it really works," said Dr. Gene Reeder, a professor of pharmacy at the University of South Carolina. "Goody's has the equivalency of 1.6 aspirin tablets, about eight-tenths of Tylenol and a good dose of caffeine so it really puts the whammy on headaches."
Southerners tend to pass remedies down and Reeder said his own grandmother swore that the powder was superior.
"A lot of people here trust their neighbor before they trust a physician," he said.
Southern tradition
Gary Stoehr, who teaches pharmacy school at the University of Pittsburgh, can still hum the Goody's jingle he remembers from when he was a resident years ago in Durham, N.C.
"It's just one of those traditions in the South," Stoehr said. "It's the same as grits. Why are people still eating grits?"
Goody's also got in early with one of the biggest brand vehicles in the country -- NASCAR.
GSK renewed its contract with the racing series this year as the "Official Pain Reliever of NASCAR," as it has been for 27 years, said Darren Singer, vice president of marketing for the product.
The company also signed NASCAR legend Richard Petty as a spokesman and sponsors the circuit's Goody's Headache Powder 200.
But Singer acknowledges that Goody's has an advantage in the South regardless of marketing campaigns, as extensive as they are.
"It's been passed down from generation to generation, going back 75 years," he said. "It's a dynamic that doesn't exist outside of the South. We've chosen to concentrate on the Southeast because we think there can be significant growth."
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