Life, it's a funny old thing. And I love it.
i've spent the day touring London on our King of Shaves Azor 'Campaign Battlebus', and ironically, being nearly arrested by our boys in blue whilst outside Buckingham Palace in our fantastic bus. Yes, our driver Matt turned left rather than right, and yes, maybe I shouldn't have been shouting "We're tough on stealth shaving taxes...on stubble and the causes of stubble" from the roof of our amAzor bus.. Otherwise we might have escaped the Boys in Blue....
...But hey, 'Live, Love, Laugh' as my friend Patrick tells me, and we had one awesome day, dspite the King nearly getting a Royal Arrest Warrant.. Will we get fined? Possibly. Did we make the policemen laugh with our "King of Shaves without the Ransom!" Undoubtedly!
It was a great day, and I enjoyed it. As did my team! Thanks Dave G, Matt from Mum and our photographer, who's name escapes me - but i've posted some of his photo's here.
Now, onto launching shaving brands with rock bands. Almost coincidentally, amazingly, p4 in today's Times (p4) featured Peter Jones of Dragon's Den backing an indie rock band with £75,000 for 30% of their earnings.
Nice try Peter, but we've got there first, by signing new British rock band Beanius to AmazoR records, as I'm moving from shaving lives to rocking them. Full details about Beanius can be found here or here, and you can download For Free their awesome new single, John Tracy from their forthcoming album, The Folly of Five.
After I'd toured Oxford Street, Parliament Square, avoided capture outside Buck House, gone past Eros in Piccadilly Circus and arrived back at Boots flagship store at Sedley Place via Regent Street, it was time to relax a bit. With a great team around me, I'd "tiggered" enough.
So, I ended up at The Angel at Henley, with my girlfriend, pint of Guinness and thinking how interesting life is. And met Jody Starr, Freddie Starr's son. Who's just been signed by a brand we're working with, to do fantastic musical stuff this summer. And then I txtd "SC" and "NB".
But that's another story. All you need to know is our "King of Shaves Azor Rocks".
A lot more to follow here, but suffice to say we've taken London by storm in our Azor bus, with lots of close shaves (in more ways than one) but here's our fantastic amAzor bus royally parked outside Boots flagship store on Oxford Street.
Watch this space for updated...will Will get arrested. Did Dave extinguish the 'minor fire'? How many King of Shaves did Diane do? Check back soon...
As for the picture, yes - 20 shaves (I wasn't going to break apart a new razor head to do the test, so I took apart my first one that I stopped using due to a nick from being dropped).
I focused on the Fusion first, so I expected the Azor to be the same condition or worse. When I brought the Azor into focus I was amazed. I showed a couple of colleagues as well, and they were impressed too. The difference goes some way to explaining the shave results.
The hardness test goes some way to explaining the results, as the Azor did measure noticeably harder than the Fusion - but not exactly significantly harder. The Fusion edge doesn't look as deep as the Azor, so that may also contribute.
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Interesting, non? King of Shaves Azor. Shaves closer, longer, for less.
:I'm delighted that our new King of Shaves Azor has garnered another fantastic review from top UK men's magazine and style bible, GQ. The fact that four of the UK's most influential and heavily read magazines have voted tha Azor a great product means a great deal to me. The four magazines are Shortlist, Esquire, Arena and GQ. We also had an awesome review from the Mail on Sunday's Live magazine, where the Azor got five stars.
Click here to see the review online at the GQ website, or read it below!:
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GQ, August issue 2008
King of Shaves Azor, £4.99. Available nationwide at Boots from 21 July. www.boots.com
Hi there, firstly very pleased with this review, hopefully 'mostlythis' can make it to Canary Wharf next Friday for our 'To Baldly Go' promotion with Johnny & Denise and the Capital 95.8FM Breakfast Team.
In fact we were in the Capital studios this morning, see the pics, and with the Azor launching at Boots flagship store on Oxford Street (opposite Debenhams) on Monday, we've got a lot going on next week, including interviews all day Tuesday, and taking the Amazor 'battlebus' to Lowestoft Airshow on Thursday.
A busy, busy week. If you want to keep up to date, check out our new Azor Campaign BattleBus blog here (thanks simon).
Courtesy 'PB'. Original blog posting here
Comment No. 1210412.
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Afternoon allofya!
I'm not sure why I'm making this post, but here goes.....
for those of us old enough to shave........
I've always bought Gillette razors - simply because they are good, and maybe due to the fact we are brainwashed into using Gillette razors during childhood...
Anyhowz, in a moment of wild abandonment the other day, I bought a 'King of Shaves' razor (twaz called summat exotic like Azor?) - and I kid you not, tiz a mighty fine shave (better than Gillette). The beauty is, its half the price of gillette, as are the blade, and it is a blighty company.
The point being........
Gillette is a mammouth (US) company and 'King of Shaves' is better, half the price and British!
Viva la Revolution!
(...I've got backache this morning and mefinks I might have taken too many tabs!!!!!)
I
snapped these two pictures whilst in Marlow today. One's taken at
Superdrug, where Wilkinson Sword (the 'Wilkin' in Wilkinette) are
offering 50% off handles (that's original) and the other is from Boots,
where Gillette are giving away a Fusion HydraGel (if you buy four super
expensive Fusion replacement blades).
Well, I guess you've got to do something to defend your territory when a market 'disruptive' competitor like King of Shaves turns up outside your drawbridge, and starts bashing it in. But 50% off or a free shaving gel is more than unoriginal, it's just plain silly. And I'm repeatedly emailed by people wanting to trade in their Gillette Fusion/Quattro handles (that they've bought half price for the blades) for an Azor (but as I don't have any as they're all being sold, that's a little challenging at the moment...)
Or,
and perhaps more worringly for the Big Dog and the slightly Littler
Dog, given UK market data is indicating that sales of both Wilkinson
Sword handles and Gillette Fusion handles are down year on year, maybe
the consumer has twigged onto the 'give it away 50% off and reap the
rewards of expensive replacement blades' (you've got to fill the car up
with petrol once you've bought it) business model?
So,
what how will our King of Shaves Azor fare in our big 'market launch'
shortly? And how will we convince people to shift from 'The Best Your
Dad (and Grandad) Can Get' to our new King of Shaves iShave Azor?
How indeed...?
Marketing experts in the UK are wondering exactly how our King of Shaves Azor can take on Gillette Fusion with one millionth-squillionth of the spend. Well, one thing's for sure, it's not by doing things conventionally (doh!). And it's not by having a group of crocked or waning champions on our books either...
You can read an article on what one of the UK's leading marketing magazines thinks about our chances here.
The thing about 'conventional' is "that's how things have been done". Note the have. Not will. Not necessarily the best (Good old Lord Levehulme's advertising adage is in rude health).
Well, I've blogged about our Facebook 'Slingshot' campaign, that only I know the true number of ads, and the spend behind them. We've done our "fair shave" manifesto launch and the campaing BattleBus engine's ticking over, ready to hit the road shortly. We've done our first 'ultimate close shave' - the skyshave and are planning more. And we've run some 'shaving software' adverts in the weekly & monthly men's press.
But now it's going to get serious. Because in a few days, the Azor will move from 'soft-launch' at Sainsbury's to a full blown market launch backed by one of the UK's biggest and best retailers.
Who? When? To what extent? What sort of promotions? Why will it work? All these questions and more will start to become evident as our King of Shaves Azor continues to deliver a superlative performance as a product, but also marks itself as a brand that's "About YOU, not THEM". If you kick your day into play with the King of Shaves, where could YOUR life take YOU?
And that brings me to Beanius. Alternative rock may not be your thing. You may be an Abba addict, a Disco diva or simply enjoy listening to popular music. Who knows. But there is one thing about music, and Madonna sang about it on a track some years back, on her track "Music" - it brings people together. Well, Beanius are about "Music" combined with another song of hers, "Jump".
And why am I involved with Beanius. Well, their founder, Matt Bean works for me (his 'day' job is sales support executive), and he and his band (including his brother, drummer Doug, Scott Evanson, vocals and John Scott, Bass) are pretty damn good, and i thought "Well, Will - you always fancied being involved in music, dreaming of being on that yacht with Simon le Bon singing Rio, so why not do the next best thing, and launch, and maybe help manage a talented band... After all, if you wanna be a rock star, gotta shave like a King". Difficult? Sure, but hey - I'm taking on Gillette! Difficult is relative.
Madonna. 'Music'. 'Jump'. Beanius. The last British band that started with a B, ended with an S, had seven letters and comprised four members did rather well. Matt, Scott, Doug, John - let's Rock. Cue John Tracy, the debut single from their forthcoming album, 'The Folly of Five'.
Beanius. Never more than 4.
.
Click here for source, see posting from 'Yiannis'.
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"Just to add my experience with Azor. I bought this because of comments I read in magazines and since it is
much cheaper than power fusion's cartriges which run out, I decided to
give it a try.
My beard is very thick and hard and although so far mach 3 and then fusion power where the only ones I could use, they still clogged and caused razor burns and red spots.
Shaving was a nightmare for me. I also tried other brands (wilkinson) and electric shavers as well but nothing worked.
When I tried Azor for first time I was so excited my wife was making fun of me for acting like that for a razor.
Azor just glides over my face cutting the beard as close as fusion does but with no pain. And best of all I dont get razor burn any more and my face is spotless.
Thank you guys for a great product.
When my current shaving gel runs out (Origins) I ll try your Ultragel as well ( I ve never tried your shaving software yet)
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Fantastic reviews for the Azor continue to flood into Nicky's inbox at King of Shaves. Here are just a few.
• 'Hi, I thought I would drop you email on my thoughts about the new Azor. Just purchased this morning and used it for the first time. What a brilliant rAzor. Cleanest, closest shave of my life. Will defiantly be using more King of Shave products in the future.'
• 'I feel compelled to write back to thank you for your so very prompt reply to my query and also to tell you that I have managed to find some Azor razors in Sainsbury's and they do in fact live up to the good reports I have read.'
• 'Success! I bought an Azor at Sainsbury's store at Castle Marina Nottingham on July 4. I thought it would be useful for you to know that it was the last one in stock. I have now used it 3 times and am pleased to report that you have developed an outstanding product. May I wish you and your colleagues every success.'
• 'I have tried the Azor again, with a fresh blade and a different shaving gel (KOS Kinexium (the orange one)) and have to say the results were quite amazing, I feel a bit foolish after my original e-mail to you in such a negative tone, is it possible the first blade was no good? A good, very close shave which has passed my wife's kiss test!'
• 'I would like to give some feedback on the use of the new Razor. Having used king of shave products in the past I thought I would give the new razor a go, I was more than pleasantly surprised with the ergonomic feel to the form, also how well it cuts through the stubble. I have been using the initial blade daily for over 1 week with no cuts to face,(goodbye Gillette power super dooper), my only criticism is that it could do with a extra blade for under the nose area. Again thank you and if you would like to send me any samples then I won't complain.'
• 'I recently bought an Azor having seen the article in Shortlist magazine.
To be honest I've never used any King of Shaves products before. I had also bought a cheap Boots own make razor a few weeks previously having got completely fed up of the rising cost of a Gillette razor. As the Azor appeared at a time when I was getting frustrated with the poor shave from the boots razor I've been delighted with the results. I'll definitely be using the £1 voucher to stock up on cartridges. I felt I had to get in touch and let you know how pleased I am with the Azor. Whilst I know about introductory pricing, I hope that positioning the Azor as a cheaper alternative to top of the range Gillette and Wilkinson sword razors will be a permanent strategy. Particularly given the rising cost of living as a whole.'
• 'Just wanted to say 'good for you' with the launch of the new Azor. Good to see someone who embraces the less is more (mor) approach and understands what the consumer really wants.'
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So, that's good news! Of course, there are some people who haven't got on with the Azor quite as well as the guys above, however these are in the tiny minority compared to overall feedback. It's important to note that you can easily shave under your nose by holding the tip of your nose back & up with your index finger, and shave vertically down - the TST hinge will bend back and its pressure will allow you to get those pesky hairs immediately under your nostrils
In addition, regarding storage - some of you have pointed out that we don't supply a 'storage unit'. This was a deliberate choice to avoid extra packaging, as in our research most of these were simply binned. You can store the Azor particularly elegantly by sliding it back into the cartridge tray - see the photo above!
Happy shaving!
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on Introducing the NEW King of Shaves Azor. iPod meets razor! Enjoy.