Friday, April 17, 1998 | 11:33 a.m.
Normally, successful marketing is a complex discipline involving research, demographics and strategic planning.
Luck is also a factor for Fisher Space Pen Co. of Boulder City.
"We've been very successful and I think the fundamental reason is a philosophy my father has shared with me since I was born. The real key to success is good luck," Morgan Fisher, the company's vice president of sales and marketing, told members of the Las Vegas chapter of the American Marketing Association recently.
It also helps to have a popular product.
Since it was first used by NASA in the 1960s, the pen that writes in space, upside down, under water and in sub-zero temperatures has grown into something of a pop culture phenomenon.
The pen is fitted with a pressurized cartridge that holds the ink, whereas normal ballpoint pens rely on gravity to feed the ink to the ball. The ink is thick and rubber-like, becoming fluid when agitated but settling again when left at rest, which allows it to write on varied surfaces, according to company literature.
That design has translated to about 1 million of the company's pens sold each year, amounting to about $10 million in sales.
Fisher, son of pen inventor Paul Fisher, said the company has targeted its growth at about 20 percent a year. Various models of the company's pens sell anywhere from $2 to $35.
The strong sales are due mainly to word of mouth advertising. Morgan Fisher said there wasn't really an effort to sell the pen outside the scientific community.
"It was sold on quality. From there it just spread," he said.
Fisher said quality is what has driven his father in perfection of the pen. About $2 million was spent on research of the product since Paul Fisher undertook his dream around 1945.
Now the pen used by the American and Russian space programs is so popular even an episode of the NBC sitcom "Seinfeld" themed a show around it.
"That's another example of the luck we've fortunate enough to have," Morgan Fisher said, adding when that episode reruns the pens "sell off the shelf."
Aside from science community, the company focuses its mainstream efforts on the gift market to keep it distinguished from other pens.
"The traditional pen market for us just doesn't make sense. We offer a different product. It's very unique," Morgan Fisher said.
Paul Fisher began his quest to develop the pen in 1945 while working for the Reynolds Pen Co. Initially Fisher Space Pen was based in California, but moved to Boulder City in 1976.
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