TREND: CLEAN LIVING
Sales billowing for air purifiers
Health concerns push U.S. sales of air-cleaning systems to $395 million in '03, but competition turns dirty as more players enter the market

By Susan Chandler
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 25, 2004

Pat Boone is crooning a different tune these days...

"You can survive weeks without food, days without water but only minutes without air," Boone says in ads on Chicago radio. "It just makes sense for your family to breathe fresh air."

Helping consumers breathe easier has become a big business. In the last five years, U.S. sales of air-cleaning systems shot up 34 percent, to $395 million in 2003, according to a study by the Freedonia Group Inc., an independent Cleveland-based market research firm. That figure is expected to grow 5.4 percent annually and exceed a half-billion dollars by 2008 as more companies barrage consumers with messages touting the benefits of pristine air, retail consultants say.

"Fifteen years ago, people thought it was crazy to buy bottled water," said Cynthia Cohen, president of Strategic Mindshare, a retail consulting firm headquartered in Florida. "There is now consciousness-raising about poor air quality. We've built too many buildings where we cannot open windows."...

Few experts expect air purifiers to become the next microwave oven, an appliance that once struck consumers as bizarre but now is found in 90 percent of U.S. households.

Yet for the growing number of families in which someone suffers from asthma or allergies, air purifiers soon may be considered a necessity, Cohen predicted.

Other consumers concerned about healthful living, including many aging Baby Boomers, already have added an air purifier to their anti-aging arsenal of vitamins, organic vegetables and filtered water...

The case for air purification was bolstered by a study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency in the mid-1990s.

The government agency best known for cleaning up toxic waste sites came to a surprising conclusion: "The air within homes and other buildings can be more seriously polluted than the outdoor air in even the largest and most industrialized cities."

Because people spend about 90 percent of their time indoors, "The risks to health may be greater due to exposure to air pollution indoors than outdoors," the EPA said. Ironically, the pollution levels are greater in many newer, energy-efficient homes that have less air leakage.

"The EPA is advertising for us better than anyone else," said Shane Cohen, marketing product manager for Oreck Corp. in New Orleans, the vacuum cleaner company that also sells air purifiers through direct-mail, infomercials and a chain of 450 Oreck stores around the country...

"There's no question in my mind a day will come when everyone has an air purification system in their home," Jackson said. "I wouldn't be in a home without one."