The Name's Bond. Shaving Bond. My take on our King of Shaves Shaving Bond Announcement.
It was a long, yet hugely rewarding day yesterday.
Following a couple of months of work with our Shaving Bond advisors, PR firm and team at King of Shaves, The Times was the broadsheet newspaper first to break our 'Shaving Bond' announcement, along with a nigh on full page lead story in the hugely popular 'The Sun'. I had carried out 20 interviews in the days running up to the announcement, with a wide range of journalists, and the overall reception to the idea was overwhelmingly positive: "Why hasn't this done before - it's a great way to connect your product with your consumers", "Genius idea, how did you come up with the idea for it?", "Exactly what King of Shaves would do - why go through a (distrusted) middleman to raise money, when you can get great publicity and raise cash in one fell swoop" were just a few of the responses to our bond issue.
Media interviews with the BBC World Service, Radio 4 and Radio 5 followed from the London Stock Exchange, as well as BBC 3 Counties Radio, before I moved onto slots with Sky News and CNBC (this with Quentin Wilson - the motoring journalist & ex Top Gear presenter - who turned out to be a King of Shaves fan).
But, the £5m question is, I guess, will the Shaving Bond be successful? Will up to 5,000 individuals subscribe for it? And if they don't (as we have said if we don't raise over £500,000 we will return money to investors), what does that mean?
Taking the first point - will it be successful first. I have absolutely No Idea. With anything new, untested, untried and without precedent, of course you hope it will work - otherwise you would never have done it, but there are no guarantees. Does this bother me? Not at all. The hugely positive coverage we garnered yesterday for King of Shaves, itself worth hundreds of thousands of pounds - as a brand prepared to connect with its consumers - to offer them not just a 'great shave' but a 'great save' too - was something our competition will struggle to get their heads around. As one wag emailed me, "If Gillette offered a Shaving Bond, it'd COST you money!" Which made me laugh out loud, and tweet it out... Marketing websites, such as Brand Republic picked up on it saying "King taking on Banks" (we're not, actually - we have a great relationship with HSBC, our principal banker) and took the brand into a whole new era of discussion - the blog posts starting off with "this smells of snake oil" but this negative comment being rapidly overturned by posts which were universally positive regarding the initiative (we sell shave oil, not snake oil, anyway).
Money & financial investment sites, such as This Is Money and My Finances picked up on it positively too, calling out the rewards and risks in a balanced way. As I said on the Radio 5 interview, "The only certain thing in the world at the moment is uncertainty - and the fact men's beards will keep on growing" and I know The King of Shaves Company is fine in our financial position to not only take in money, but to spend it too - overcoming our biggest competitor - lack of awareness, and people sticking with the perceived 'best a man can get'.
Via PRWeb.com, the release went international overnight, and I've had a deluge of international press enquiries about the idea - whether other companies can do it - will this be a new way for companies, products, or brands that consumers trust to raise money, cutting out the (currently not much liked) middleman/fund provider - be they an investment bank or private equity. Who knows - but what I do know is this morning, I've had an email from a fellow Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Winner asking to be put in touch with our advisors, as this is something "they want to do" and another, from the head of a brand that considered the idea, but shelved it due to issues of complexity and cost (um, well - we dealt with these - and they weren't that complex, or costly!).
My main reason for issuing our Shaving Bond, with its 6% per annum interest coupon, a limited edition 'mirror finish' Shaving Bond certificate to hang in your bathroom, and exclusive, not available to anyone else, product (which some people are applying for bonds alone, to get their hands on!!!) is to recruit up to 5,000 brand enthusiasts - brand advocates - brand ambassadors - guys & girls who we affectionately call 'Loyal Subjects' and have them in our brand DNA - when they're out doing the weekly shop, maybe can make KoS look nice on the supermarket shelves, and if someone is looking at buying a shaving product, maybe - just maybe - they'll recommend King of Shaves.
The money we're raising to spend on marketing is incremental to the money we've ALREADY raised, and money we have access to via our funding facilities. As I pointed out in interviews, we're repeatedly approached from a structural investment perspective by private equity houses, investment banks - and often, large global companies.
But for the moment, I am happy keeping King of Shaves doing what it does best - growing strongly, shaving people better daily, for increasingly lower cost (our Azor handles AND cartridges are currently on promotion at Tesco & Sainsbury - something our competitors will shirk from doing) and working towards globalising the brand. With market launches in the USA, Brazil & South Africa happening in the next few months, just a year after we launched our Azor, my team and I are of the view that if we can deliver on our growth targets, product innovations and more, and work over the next 3-5 years to take King of Shaves to a Genuine global grooming challenger using our own resources and innovations, then we will.
As 'The Pirate Inside' book starts:"It's more fun being a Pirate, than joining the Navy" (Steve Jobs, Apple) and concludes: "Beware the person who believes in what he's doing".
Faster, higher, stronger. We're here to shave the world better, forever.
And, of course, give our customers some savings too :-)
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