Met-Rx Engineered Nutrition has always used a curious blend of medicine and marketing to sell its popular line of over-the-counter nutrition products.
The company's founder and chairman is a medical doctor who donated a research laboratory to UCLA and offers price discounts to physicians whose patients use Met-Rx products to gain weight. Yet, E. Scott Connelly evidently knows the value of getting his powders and drinks placed in films such as Quentin Tarrantino's "Jackie Brown."
Irvine-based Met-Rx embraces the age-old practice of using stars such as Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman to pitch product. But the privately held company also relies on testimonials from patients who credit Met-Rx products with leading to dramatic recoveries from life-threatening diseases.
The marketing showmanship isn't out of line in the sports nutrition market that, according to San Diego-based Nutrition Business Journal, grew 12% to $1.27 billion in 1997. This is, after all, a market where the Web site address of one Met-Rx competitor, American Body Building, is http://www.getbig.com.
So it's not surprising Met-Rx is generating headlines with a pair of new products with links to androstenedione, the controversial over-the-counter supplement that home-run king Mark McGwire has used to help gain a competitive edge.
One new product is advertised as a noticeably more powerful version of androstenedione, the testosterone-producing supplement that supposedly helps weightlifters and other athletes to build muscles. The other is a chewing gum laced with androstenedione that will be marketed in part at post-menopausal women who want to bolster their sex drive.
Met-Rx, which claims to generate $100 million in revenue from its popular nutrition drinks and powders, made news last week when ESPN and Fox rejected a commercial for the more powerful androstenedione product.
ESPN ran the commercial once during a weightlifting program but dropped it after scholastic and collegiate sports organizations complained that it was sending the wrong message to youthful athletes. But Met-Rx executives argue that the ad was appropriate because the over-the-counter supplement carries a disclaimer on its labels limiting use to "healthy adults."
Androstenedione is allowed in major league baseball locker rooms but has been banned by the National Football League, the National Basketball Assn. and the International Olympic Committee.
