D-CON

d-CON

A d-CON can from 1950
Owner	Reckitt Benckiser.
Country	United States
Introduced	1950
Previous owners	• d-CON Company (Lee Ratner)  • Lehn & Fink  • Sterling Drug
Website	d-CONproducts.com

d-CON is a brand of rodent control products owned and distributed in the United States by the UK-based consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser. The d-CON product line includes traps and baits for use around the home for trapping and killing rats and mice. As of 2015, bait products use first-generation vitamin K anticoagulants as poison.

In 1950, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation patented warfarin, a new chemical compound which had been in development since the 1930s. Chicago businessman Lee Ratner secured a non-exclusive licensing agreement for the product, which had been approved for use as a rodenticide. He then founded the d-CON Company to sell the new product, purchasing an initial supply from another company already distributing the compound. (The name "d-CON" being a reference to "decontaminate".) Within a short period of time, the product "revolutionized the art of rodent control". Previously, farmers had to shoot rats one at a time or use high doses of toxic chemicals. In contrast, warfarin posed minimal risk to other animals as cumulative doses were required to achieve toxicosis, and did not cause bait shyness. d-CON was originally sold in 4-ounce packages of green powder for $2.98. When mixed with grain or ground meat the product produced six pounds of bait – enough to cover an average sized farm.

Ratner hired four men to start the d-CON Company in the Summer of 1950. On September 5, a trial run of radio advertisements costing $1,000 was purchased. For seven days, fifteen-minute infomercials ran on two radio stations – WIBW in Topeka and WLW in Cincinnati – during farm or news programs. Mail order demand created by the ads was high and the following week the ads aired thrice daily on the stations. As demand remained high, more stations were added. Print ads in farm papers followed. By December, d-CON was spending $30,000 a week on coast-to-coast ads across 425 radio stations, and employed 60 people. According to company claims, d-CON was selling more rodent killer in a week than their nearest competitor sold in a year. A month later, the company was up to 100 non-sales employees.

To increase momentum for the new product, Ratner organized a 15-day experiment in Middleton, Wisconsin, a town with a particularly bad rat problem. On November 4, d-CON was distributed throughout the community free of charge. By November 19, the town's rat problem was under control with no traces of the rodents in the area. Similar demonstrations throughout the country occurred twice a month. Ratner secured endorsements of the U.S. Public Health Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, and local authorities, as well as customer testimonials, all of which were featured in the company's ads. Radio advertising included segments in farm shows and sponsorship of popular general interest programs. d-CON's ad agency, Marfree Advertising, had to employ ten people to keep up with all the activity.