BBurt’s’ lilip bbalm sales ‘blowin’ in the wind’

There’s a reason why Burt’s Bees has become the No. 2 lip-balm brand in the US — and it has to do with meteorological savvy.

Burt’s Bees owner Clorox discovered that sales of the beeswax balm tick up when the wind blows more than seven miles per hour from the north in any given market, in addition to when temperatures drop.

Clorox, which also makes Glad trash bags and Brita water filters, purchased the natural, “earth friendly” Burt’s Bees brand in 2007, when its lip-balm product was No. 5.

But it has since leapfrogged past some other balms and is now second only to ChapStick.

About 18 months ago, Clorox’s data science team turned to the WetBulb Global Temperature index — which measures temperature, humidity, wind speed, sun angle and cloud cover — after discovering that the index influences 80 percent of lip-balm purchases.

When optimal conditions for lip balm sales surface in any of 68 weather zones designated by the National Weather Service, Clorox buys mobile ads in that zone and pinpoints the people who are likely to buy Burt’s Bees balm.

“We often tag these ads, and we can follow that user to find out if she went into a store and may have purchased a lip-balm product,” said Eric Reynolds (above), chief marketing officer of Clorox.

The consumer products giant uses Nielsen data and partners with Facebook to track people who received the ad, according to Reynolds.

“It’s the way we now measure the efficiency of our advertising — and it definitely increases sales,” Reynolds added.

The weather data even help Clorox sell another product it owns — Kingsford Charcoal.

“We reach out to people on nice weather days when they are likely to be thinking about firing up their grills,” Reynolds said.