55 posts tagged “gillette”
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On Saturday 21st November 2009 I was pleased to receive an
email from Mat Morrison of Porter Novelli apologising for the incident
& directing me here
where there was a further apology from Jean Wyllie, MD of Porter
Novelli UK. I accept their apology on behalf of King of Shaves, and
consider the matter closed.
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I've not been that well these past couple of days, knocked out by a cold/cough/flu virus immediately after my talk to the Bristol Entrepreneur Society on Tuesday (which was great fun, and I really enjoyed it - despite feeling awful).
As I was tucked up in bed, I missed a bigger knock-out, delivered by the hand of Thierry Henry to Ireland's hopes of competing in the 2010 World Cup. Normally I check my twitter & facebook feeds pretty regularly, but until yesterday, hadn't.
So, I was somewhat overwhelmed to see the number of emails & tweets sent to me on the subject, because - of course - Thierry Henry is signed to Gillette.
Tweets received included:
- "Time for everyone to boycott gillette and go @kingofshaves #henrylecheat"
- "Cannot bloody believe Gillette is standing by Henry. There goes my Mach3 in the bin"
- "Wonder if #Gillette will drop #ThierryHenry now? Reputation management issue for brand, they are getting targeted for their association"
Having (naturally!) re-tweeted tweet #1, I was then intrigued to read the following tweet from @charliedm:
"A lot more people would switch to Azor if it wasn't a cheap plastic piece of rubbish that leaves you looking all Sweeney Todd".
Now, as A) I've shaved with our Azor for over 2 years now (and get the close, comfortable and cost efficient King of Shaves each morning), B) know that a lot of people are switching to our Azor - it was the #1 selling system razor handle last month, and C) know it isn't a bit of 'cheap plastic rubbish' - rather, it embodies all that is great in consumer products, not all that is unnecessary - I was interested to see who @charliedm was...
Turns out he's Creative Strategist for Porter Novelli London...
...Gillette's PR agency.
Ooh er. Someone's rattled out there.
The following tweet exchange then ensues:
@kingofshaves Gillette stick with Henry. Many others not sticking with Gillette, but going to King of Shaves, Azor. Good!
@charliedm Well done for turning the misfortune and misery of as entire nation into a publicity drive. That's not at all cheap".
@kingofshaves "Don't Porter Novelli look after Gillette's PR...?"
@charliedm "It's great for the kind of razor you might get in a Christmas cracker...
@kingofshaves "Um, you would say that given you handle Gillette's PR. The King of Shaves Azor is a GREAT razor
@kingofshaves "Surprised that as chief strategist you make such a negative, public comment. wait until you see our october sales - bit worried?.
@charliedm "Does a lion find a dormouse worrying? Anyway, this isn't work - this is jousting"
@kingofshaves "BA used to think that way. And learned the hard way. Joust away, my friend".
@charliedm "Interesting. That's just the kind of thing XL Airways used to say..."
Then, another enters the fray:
@shedmenshealth Playground bitching on twitter? :o/ Charlie,consumers can read! You should know better in PR. Will, stay strong fella!
Then another..
@peterdean1 "*enjoying* @kingofshaves tweet jousting with Gillette PR's > @charliedm.
Then another...
@atterolognis "Interesting joust :-) Funny that he refers to the Azor as a bit of plastic when his is exactly that. Oh wait, it vibrates.
Then another..
Adam: Is @KingofShaves tweet jousting with Gillette PR's > @charliedm going to turn into another great Tweet war? Hmm....
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On Saturday 21st November 2009 I was pleased to receive an email from Mat Morrison of Porter Novelli apologising for the incident & directing me here where there was a further apology from Jean Wyllie, MD of Porter Novelli UK. I accept their apology on behalf of King of Shaves, and consider the matter closed.
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The King of Shaves Azor was the best selling branded system razor handle by volume in the UK in October, beating Wilkinette by a decent margin! Here are the key numbers:-
Total branded system razor sales 4 weeks to 31/10/09: 430,506 units
- King of Shaves Azor: 85,938 units.
- Gillette Fusion Manual: 60,235 units
- Gillette Mach3 Manual: 46,706 units
- Wilkinson Sword Quattro Precision Trimmer: 43,711 units
- Wilkinson Sword Quattro Manual: 24,628 units
- Wilkinson Sword Quattro Titanium Manual: 20,377 units
- Gillette Fusion Power Stealth: 17,377 units
This performance was despite continuing product discounting by both competitors, and substantial TV spend by Gillette.
Our handle market share for the month more than doubled to nigh on 20%, a 120% growth on the previous month's handle sales of 39,000 handles. Replacement cartridge sales also increased from 141,000 replacement cartridges sold to 227,000 cartridges sold, a 61.4% increase.
With our second burst of TV advertising now underway (across Sky Sports channels, ESPN, Dave & Dave Ja Vu) and a second round of trade promotion planned to end the year, we are delighted with the performance of the Azor, as we continue to consistently build brand awareness and market share in the face of what I'd call 'fierce' competition into 2010.
We have 'new' coming to the market, and those of you who are Shaving Bond holders will be some of the first to receive these new products as we continue to improve our product offering.
Do remember you can follow my regular blogs here & here, and if you wish, become a facebook fan here or follow me on twitter here.
King of Shaves Azor continues to grow in the face of huge competition from 'Wilkinette'. According to sales numbers we received yesterday (and this is before our integrated TV advertising & trade promotions kicked off early October) here are the highlights:
- King of Shaves Azor handle sales up 309% year on year (to w/e Oct 3rd 2009)
- King of Shaves Azor Endurium replacement cartridges up 1,339% year on year (to w/e Oct 3rd 2009)
- King of Shaves Azor the #5 selling system razor handle by volume (outselling all individual Wilkinson Sword variants, as well as Gillette Mach3 Turbo, Gillette Fusion Power Stealth, Gillettte Fusion Power Phenom & Gillette Fusion Power Gamer).
- Aggressive price promotions by Gillette drove handle sales at the expense of handle cost, the average Gillette system handle (including all power variants) at just £4 (versus RRP's of up to £9.99)
- All Wilkinson Sword products in month-on-month sales decline.
Looking forward to reporting our October sales figures - where our handle market share could easily hit 17% by volume.
Awesome King of Shaves Azor Sales in UK. (original blog post)
In the past four weeks, in the UK alone, we've sold a simply stunning 107,000+ Azor system razor handles and an even more unbelievable 602,000+ Azor Endurium cartridges. With each Azor cartridge delivering 3-4 weeks of high performance use, that's over 2,000,000 weeks of King of Shaving.
Words fail me. Many, many thanks to everybody who's turned from 'the Dark side' and have seen the light, who 'get' our ecoptimised, high performance razor with its 'Bendology Technology' and who are shaving closer, longer, for less - and with style too.
King of Shaves Azor also shortlisted for Shortlist Magazine's 2010 Men's Grooming Award for Best Razor - we won 'Best New Shaving Product' last year - will we manage the accolade of 'Top Razor' as we turn our faces towards 2010.
King of Shaves - Truly the Future of Shaving.
So, the 'blade wars' start to ramp up. I spotted that Superdrug today now have old style Wilkinson Sword (Schick) Quattro cartridges (not Titanium) at 20p off. Oooh, that's a big shaving, not. Plus, they've also taken £2 off the cost of their manual Quattro razors (still more expensive than Azor at full price) and £3 off their hedge-trimmer razor (sorry, 'Titanium Precision) - also more expensive. Plus, they've brought their 'Mo'vember promotion forward...into October. Bit kneejerk, but as it's for charity, well - I'm not criticising this (we partnered with Movember in Australia a few years back).
In addition to Asda slashing up to £3.30 off Glllette Fusion & Mach3 cartridges, Tesco and Boots have only the sort of (Costco buy in bulk) promotion that P&G could think of, where you have to spend nearly £20 for 13 Fusion blades, saving you £11 off the already over-priced high price. With the average supermarket basket shop being about £80, Gillette are asking you to part with nearly 25% of this, to try and lock men into overpriced Fusion cartridges.
From a retailer perspective, given they specialise in FMCG - Fast Moving Consumer Goods - well, I can't believe they'll be over the moon about this when the promotion ends. The FSDU's I saw over the weekend were rammed full with product (we were pretty low on stocks in most retailers) as even at this 'bargain' price, our Azor (when it goes back to 'fair at full price' in a few weeks will still be LESS than Gillette's deal. Enter SMCG's (Slow Moving Consumer Goods). Ouch.
Plus, you won't have to drop nearly £20 to enjoy the months of King of Shaves shaving with our Award Winning razor, the Azor.
Interesting times - watch this space - and again, HUGE uplifts for King of Shaves Azor over the weekend, more great reviews for Azor at dooyoo.co.uk and our TV commercial Shaveolution (Bend the Rules) featuring our very own Elvis Stubbles is giving 'Wilkinette' troubles. People asking after Mat Le Star's soundtrack 'Lust and Charm' too - available on Soundcloud, downloadable MP3 coming soon I suspect.
We're a week into our integrated above/below the line Azor awareness strategy with retailers, and are on massive uplift. Our TV ad debuted successfully on Tuesday, and is getting 99% great reviews (some people don't like it, but I guess you can't please all the people all the time).
What has happened is for the first time, Gillette have gone into what I'll call 'heavy promotion mode' with Fusion, as evidenced by a value pack we've just spotted in Tesco, selling a Fusion Manual & 13 cartridges for £19.99. Versus our Azor 3 up at £2.44 & 4 cartridge pack at £2.88, ie £11.52 for 15 cartridges & handle. This is, to my knowledge, the first time ever, in the world, that Gillette have been forced to discount their cartridge price. I love the fact that we've
I've blogged the following phrase before - King of Shaves is 'fair price at full price' and Gillette Fusion is 'over-priced at half price'.
We're now on promotion at Tesco as well as Sainsbury's, Morrison's, Wilko's and will shortly be on promotion with both Asda and Boots.
If you're a guy, and you shave, then October is a great time to check out the King of Shaves! Choose different, shave better, save money!
You know the saying, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall". Well, I sit writing this as our new TV ad for the Azor, Shaveolution (Bend the Rules) has debuted online here, here, here and here.
Tomorrow, Flight 1 of our TV ad campaign kicks off, 8.53pm UK time on Sky Sports (during the Champions League half time slot) and then rolls extensively across Sky, ITV 2, ITV 4, Dave & Dave Ja Vu.
This £1m+ above the line promotion ties in with extensive retailer promotions for the Azor, which started last week at Sainsbury's across the UK. By the end of the first week of this promotion with this single retailer, we expect to have sold more Azors (and importantly, more replacement cartridges) than all retailers together in the previous weeks.
So, is it 'Gamer over' for Fusion (Gamer is Gillette's latest 'name' for its Fusion 5 blade razor). Well, as I have blogged repeatedly over the past 15 months, it is our intention to genuinely disrupt & game change the system razor market, firstly in the UK, then
Here at King of Shaves, we're committed to giving men a genuine performance alternative to 'Wilkinette' - a choice that allows them to 'choose different & shave better' - and ultimately, shave closer, longer, for less.
We're picking up the pace in this race for shaving's thought (and product) leadership and I for one am really looking forward to the next few months! Many thanks to the King of Shaves Smarketing team led by Tim Wright, ably assisted by Jenny Pitt and the talented smarketers working alongside them, from our ad agency, Hooper Galton to media & PR specialists Brian Maclaurin Associates & The Communications Store.
As the ad soundtrack says, "We're striking out in a different direction..." And I, for one, hope to have you with us on the next phase of our journey for King of Shaves - the future of shaving!
For a couple of hours yesterday, I had the pleasure of A) a great lunch at Home House, the private member's club in Portman Square London, and B) the pleasure of the company of some of the UK's top marketing minds, in a "lunchtime discussion" about what 'Digital means to "Marketing', chaired by Marketing Week's editor, Mark Choueke.
There were some heavyweight types there - the heads of marketing at Ford & Barclaycard, the Guardian, Unilever (VP Global Comms), Alex Batchelor (Chairman of The Marketing Society, ex Royal Mail) and more - UK heads of business units from Google, journalists from Marketing Week. No agencies were present. I was the sole CEO/Founder/Brand Owner of an FMCG brand. The thrust of the 2 hour discussion over lunch went something like this:
"What does digital mean to marketing in the 21st century (ie, how relevant are we, is what we're doing right, and if it's not, what should we do? What's going on?"
and
"Can (traditional, conventional) agencies (media & creative) be relevant (ie make money) out of digital - note this has been a challenge for media owners - ie NewsCorp, content owners (ie YouTube) and ad agencies (Banner ads? How creatively demeaning! Skyscrapers? You want your ad on YouTube? Urrgghh).
Now, this was quite an interesting lunch for me. Firstly, I'd just finished judging around 50 awards for the 2009 BIMA's - more on this after the Awards are presented - we have a final meeting to vote for the winners shortly). Secondly, I've absolutely (& personally) lived, breathed, embraced, leveraged, globalised, King of Shaves' presence 'ONline' since 1995. Firstly, through buying shave.com. Secondly, since signing up to eBay, YouTube, Amazon - when people still thought the latter was a long South American river. And since 2001, blogging (although it wasn't called that then) about what we're doing with King of Shaves as a brand, attempting to enter into an ONline dialogue with our consumers (as blogging was free, and was globally available, this seemed to make great sense to me). Finally, and more recently, I discovered a start-up called Obvious Corporation in 2006, which owned something called 'Twitter' and now, personally, write a couple of blogs here & here, tweet here and generally (try) to 'keep on top of stuff'.
Simply put, what we come across like online is 99.5% down to me. Because, I'm the person who does it...
So, what was the upshot of the discussion?
Well, it was like this.
Confusion, "unsured-ness" reigned. Digital was viewed as 'difficult', 'disruptive', 'disintermediating', potentially damaging and most importantly, from a (traditional) marketing (& traditional agency) perspective, a real threat. Why? Well, it's because in the old days, 'Marketers made speeches to their grateful buying public via things called TV commercials' and now, people simply aren't eyeballing the TV screen, or if they are, they aren't really bothered about the message (unless it's ground-breakingly, fabulously, funny, creative, thought-provoking or challenging). Most of (today's) commercials, simply put, aren't.
Sure, we like to believe Barack Obama when he says "Change, we CAN". People like leadership, they like reassurance, they like believable rhetoric and they love a well delivered, passionate and well timed speech. There is still a space for a Great TV commercial. But, and this is a big BUT, they like even more is having a conversation via the internet - not being addressed by it. People love talking to other people. Why do you think Vodafone, O2, Telefonica, Verizon, Orange - are worth so much money. Witness the explosive growth of facebook (social networking), twitter (sharing with people what you're up to) and shortly - community - stuff like collaboration & sharing (playlists being one example).
So, 'old school' brands are struggling to cope with engaging in the ONline digital conversation. Why? Well, look at the way I've written ONline. I presume 'online' means the fact that the computer is on a line (to somewhere else). A bit of an anachronism, as most stuff these days is wireless. But, anyway. I emphases the ON because the WWW, the world-wide-web, the internet, the 'consumer cloud' never sleeps. It's "Always ON". In the old days, the TV would be turned off at night, after News at Ten, and that'd be that - until you'd get your Sun through the letterbox the next day.
No longer. Now, conversations are happening 247365.25. And, if you're not participating in them (as a brand) then you're not contributing. Well, that's the way i see it anyway. The days are gone where Coke said "Drink me - I'm the real thing", where Gillette said "Trust me, I'm the best a man can get", where McDonalds said "You're Loving It" and Microsoft said "Where do you want to go today - we'll take you there".
Look at the confidence of today's internet savvy brands, who know how to hold conversations with consumers. Ever see Google advertise? Apple? Twitter? eBay? Skype? Surely, these are prime candidates to sponsor the Olympic Games, given their bottom lines and revenues. But, you know what, they don't need to - they don't have to. They're "simply there" helping consumers on a day by day basis.
Because "we're all talking now" the control of the conversation - sorry speech - by brands, to consumers has been lost, probably forever. Some brands "get this" (I'd like to think we do - for example, Gillette Global (a $57Bn dollar business) have just 42 followers (18.09.09) on Twitter, and are following, amongst others, companies they own (duh!). King of Shaves has 2,400 (18.09.09) followers - and growing strongly - and this is a shaving brand, remember!
So, if you're a marketeer used to making speeches to consumers about how great your brand is, and why it should be bought - guy (or gal), your days are numbered.
However, if you're a marketeer determined to contribute (creatively) to the conversation - to offer out, and take back, and to help people access your brand, product, or service, then hey - you know what - it's a whole new world for you - a world the ad agencies (on the whole) are yet to get to grips with, and because of that, anything, anything at all is possible.
Live at the heart of the online hurricane. Hold conversations with consumers. Make them amazed with your genuine insight. Make them laugh with your creativity. Help them help themselves. Don't tell them what to do.
The past was a different place. They did things differently there. Knowledge is King. Creativity Is Paramount. Share it, and make people laugh :-)
