Click here for the piece. (IMHO Gillette Fusion MVP looks somewhat dated, non?)
With 2010 just around the corner, the "Noughties" have been a decade of delight for King of Shaves (original blog post)
How quickly has the last decade passed? I remember being in Val d'Isere on New Year's Eve in December, 1999 - my son Cameron was just a few weeks old, we were all 'worrying' about the Millennium bug, and already deriding the Millennium dome. King of Shaves had just 8 products, and was yet to go on sale in the USA, let alone Japan, South Africa and Brazil. And any thought of launching a King of Shaves razor, with Gillette's Mach3 starting to dominate 'shaving hardware' were still four years away. Even Google was only just starting to get going!
This has been a decade in which so much has happened. 9/11, the advent of 'reality TV', the democratisation and global spread of the broadband internet (remember dial-up anyone?). Michael Jackson died, global warming has become a daily topic of conversation, everyone is looking to have the 'X' factor, in 2004 over 200,000 were killed by the Tsunami, we have a black US president and the economy, which was in strong growth, nearly fell over on a global basis. It's certainly been a decade of change.
Where 2000-2009 were described as the 'noughties', 2010-2019 are being mooted as the 'one-der' years. I'm pretty sure 'the only way is up', with the continuing superfast development of the web, the increasing importance of social networking, for consumers as well as businesses, the advent of 'digital dialogue' rather than 'brand broadcast' and now with twitter along with Google & Bing allowing information/knowledge to be posted and search indexed in real time, things will no doubt happen even faster. So, what big trends might evolve? What industries will flourish, and what will simply cease to exist.
Certainly, where knowledge is confirmed, the rumoured launch of the Apple Tablet (iSlate?) will undoubtedly turn reading about knowledge on its head. Amazon launched the Kindle, which has helped to accelerate the eBook, but undoubtedly by the end of 2019, we'll all have hundreds, maybe thousands, of our favourite books stored on our iSlate, served up by iRead, the competitor to Amazon which will surely be launched by Apple.
We'll also start to witness the advent of the Endustrial (rather than Industrial) revolution; a global infstracture of Environmentally relevant & renewable energy projects, encompassing power generation which eschew the use of oil and coal, and set the scene for how countries will get their power in the future. This is an incredibly exciting area, requring billions of pounds of manufacturing investment, and will almost certainly be 'built locally to satisfy local needs'. I for one am looking forward to seeing a huge array of tidal power devices and wind turbines sited off the coast near Sizewell B, feeding into the National Grid, with them being serviced by a newly rejuvenated Lowestoft, ideally sited to carry out the maintenance of these NewGen products, revitalising the town.
Where shaving hardware is concerned, we could be looking at billion bladed razors - ones that embrace Nanotechnology, which might even self sharpen, as well as the advent of the first ceramic bladed razors, which last forever. Or, maybe, stuff that is even more futuristic... King of Shaves has always pioneered and championed innovation, and this is extremely exciting for us - we have 'new' coming in early 2010, and lots of plans to continue growing and developing our brand - bringing the King of Shaves to men and women on an increasingly global basis, through an increasing variety of distribution channels.
So, as I sign off from 2009, I personally have great expectations for next year, and the ensuing decade. It should be a time of growth, consumer collaboration and great innovation - one I'm excited to be involved in, and play my part as a UK manufacturer in too.
But for now, I'm looking forward to a glass of champagne at midnight tonight, and watching the final episode of Doctor Who with David Tennant tomorrow.
Important: Enjoy!
As the year draws to a cold, white close I'm delighted that our TV ad campaign for the King of Shaves Azor won The Grocer's award for campaign of the year in their annual Top Product Survey.
I was also pleased to see that our Azor featured in Interestment's Top 100 things from the last decade, listed at #18.
A great way to finish the decade commonly known at 'The Noughties'.
Now I'm looking forward to the 'One-der Years' - 2010 thru 2019.
Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to you all, here's to plenty of shaving in style (and saving) with King of Shaves and Azor in 2010 - we have stylish 'new' coming too...for guys & gals!
Best,
Will
As our thoughts turn to the 'One-der' Years (a newly coined phrase for the next decade - 2010 thru 2019), I remain amazed at how fast the world of digital discussion is eclipsing the era of 'brand broadcast'. Back in 1999, when Google was only just starting to demonstrate the power of 'Search' we now have real-time availability of the latest 'trending topic ' on Twitter, witness the recent, almost vertical fall from grace of Tiger Woods. Would he have fallen so fast a decade ago, with news reporting largely restricted to Lo-Fi papers. Who knows.
Having listened to 'Start the Week' on Radio 4 this morning, there are two new phrases entering the lexicon of digital discussion - the 'Spinternet' and 'Slacktivisim'. In the context of the R4 programme, these were used mainly to do with whether social network tools like twitter and facebook can bring about 'regime change' - witness #Iran during their recent elections, and how much of a double edged sword they are (Dictators, or politically 'closed' countries can use them too - apparently in China there are over 200,000 'Pro-bloggers' - each paid US$50c to write Government supportive posts on forums, on blogs and the like. Slactivism relates to the ease of setting up a Facebook group to protest something, and then how this can propagate - I'm pretty sure the Facebook page to try and force France to replay their World Cup game against Ireland after the Thierry Henry 'CheatGate' episode has over 500,000 'Slacktivists' - no standing outside FIFA's HQ berating Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini for these guys - they let their fingers do the talking.
But what does this mean for brands like King of Shaves? Good, or bad? Taking the 'Spinternet' first - this is where paid (or independent) people can post their particular 'Spin' on an issue on the Internet, for the world to see. Perhaps Tiger Wood should have had 'Spinternetters' spinning out his version of the story, rather than a couple of lame paragraphs on his website, whilst sites like TMZ ran amok. Would this have helped him - mobilising people to help him try and control the situation? I personally doubt it. But, might it have helped Accenture, Gillette to counter the clearly negative association with the superstar sportsman. That's a different kettle of fish. I follow tweets and posts regularly, some appear to be 'pro-brand' in terms of trying to limit the damage, but do real independently minded people take any notice of this? I'd like to think not - after all - anyone can post a 'great product review', in the same way they can also diss a product. It's their personal view, maybe paid for, maybe not. But, as the world's eyeballs increasingly shift online, and spend more and more time looking at a 17" screen than a 42" flatscreen TV, marketing types will definitely want their brand to be seen in the right light, spun in the right way.
This is why on Twitter I post personally. It's my opinion, I am clearly visible as 'the King behind King of Shaves' and therefore will be expected to be positive about my brand, and if faced with complaint, dissatisfaction - attempt to publicly, then privately (via DM or email) find out why. After all, honesty is the best policy, isn't it - and transparency will shine through, rather than trying to obfuscate the issue. So, I'll be keeping an eye out on the whole Spinternet thing, especially amongst Slacktivists.
Slacktivism - lazy activists - also has the potential to be huge in the one-der years of new brand marketing. Facebook fan pages are commonplace now, and I'm sure brands look longingly at mobilising these fans via a simple, perhaps product led, inducement or simple other, to crusade on behalf of their brand. It's so easy to do it, you only need to have a story (or product) to sell, and you can get people to campaign on your behalf. Witness the design led Apple enthusiasts - Slacktivists - who regularly belittle Microsoft's attempts to make Windows as good as what Apple does. This is clearly a hugely powerful area, which if managed correctly (by the 21st century marketer) can continue to deliver 'brand activation' on a national & international scale.
Spinternetter? Slacktivist? I look forward to reading your views, or hearing from you if you feel these new terms may just apply to you.
USA's Leading Beauty & Style Bible WWD Features King of Shaves Azor & AlphaGel, 'Cutting Edge' for Men. (original blog post at blogs.shave.com/king)
Azor info here
Independent reviews (via dooyoo) here
I was really delighted to be on the judging panel for the National Finals of the Make Your Mark Challenge held at King's Place in London yesterday. Over 73,000 students started the challenge, yesterday 150 had made the natonial finals, split into 12 teams of 14-16 year olds & 12 teams of 16-19 Year olds (I was one of 4 judges for this category). Each team had to 'pitch' their idea in just 5 minutes, and answer questions from the judges for a further 3.
In addition, each business required three key attributes:
- Local Inspiration for a Cool Creation.
- Genuinely viable (ie we, as judges, would invest!)
- 'Green' (ie Carbon reducing).
The quality of the presentations was exceptional, given that the teams had literally just one day to brainstorm an idea into a presentable format, including market & competitor analysis, product description & financials.
In third place was 'Pure Manure', by Assumption Grammar School in Northern Ireland, who's business reused waste and channeled it into local environmental projects, the product itself being collected from local farms, racecourses, stables and cattle markets. The waste would then be used to plant flowerbeds & trees, reducing the carbon footprint. It was a very slick and well thought out presentation by the five girls.
Taking second place were Sudbury Upper School for their 'green comparison' website GreenLife, inspired by price comparison websites like Confused.com. The website would award a green label (like a FairTrade label) to companies, who have demonstrably made an effort to reduce their carbon footprint. I presented this award, and had a bit of a mind-slip on stage, forgetting the name of the school - so my sincere apologies here, but thanks to Ben Cohen from Channel 4 for his gentle reminder. Preparation is key!
The winner of the overall competition for this age-group, who took home a cheque for £1,000 and a framed certificate were Plymouth College with Pro Planners, their idea for an online student planner. This virtual planner does away with the need for paper, and as teachers can upload assignments directly to all the individual student's planners, ensures that pupils know what homework is being set - even if they are away. Not only was the idea instantly 'got' by the judges, it was useful (my 10 year old's homework planner book is a source of much discussion) and the financials, the design/approach and the overall pitch was outstanding.
Well done everyone.
I guess I was lucky to be born with the surname King. For those who have read my book, King of Shaves wasn't originally called that - it was firstly 'Sunrise' then secondly 'Kings' with the tagline 'King of Shaves'. It was only when nearly everyone who bought King's referred to it as King of Shaves that we twigged that was what the brand name should be.
Really admired brands - brands that people buy not because they need to, but because they want to, have their own personality. Hewlett Packard for example, was an amalgam of Messrs. Hewlett & Packard. Porsche was Ferdinand's surname. Other brands, like Apple, eschewed using the founders surname - an iJob or an iWozniak probably wouldn't have had the same consumer impact, ditto Brin for search (now Google, that's a different matter all together).
When you have a mega-brand on your hands, it's best (in my opinion) to let that brand shine out its own personality. And that's what we try to do with King of Shaves. Many think it's an American brand. Others have no idea it was founded by a Lowestoft, Suffolk lad, back in 1993. But most who buy it know what it stands for.
The best.
However, achieving consumer recognition leading to increased sales, awareness and repeat purchase from zero brand identity (and zero cash) is a challenge. So, challenger brands (as I guess we're regarded) sometimes need to align their brand with a 'winning personality' in order to accelerate growth. We did this with Will Carling, the English rugby captain in the mid 1990's, and again with John Terry, the Chelsea (and later England) skipper between 2006-8. These were tactical alignments - attaching 'personality, perhaps celebrity recognition' to a simple, functional product. And, this has worked, but was never a long term strategy.
Our brand has to stand on its own. As being the best. And in being the best, not necessarily the most expensive. But it must deliver what it stands for.
Over the past sixteen years, we've built what I term a great 'brand foundation'. With millions of men choosing our products, and enjoying them, this has enabled us to launch onto a global stage with a product portfolio that now not only includes shaving oils & aloe based (low foam) gels, but also a new 'take' on razors & blades. A razor that embraces simplicity as the ultimate sophistication (Leonardo Da Vinci would be proud of this) and one that eschews 'costly unnecessary' (including tons of additional marketing, cost friction) but delivers...
...the King of Shaves.
And this is critical, now we live in an era of 'digital dialogue' via social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter rather than in the previous era of 'brand broadcast' via 'old fashioned' push adverts on TV. Sure, TV advertising is important to build brand awareness, call out product differences and opportunities, but as a sales & marketing growth mechanism, it is rapidly being downgraded whilst 'consumer conversation' and 'digital discussion' (via forums, blogs and other) starts to take centre-stage.
Many wonder how I find the time to personally administer both our twitter account as well as twin blogs at shave.com & brandroyalty.com.
Well, the answer is A) I work hard, and put in the hours and B) it's absolutely imperative that our consumers know they have a direct line to me, the 'personality' behind King of Shaves, not a third party, outsourced 'doer' or other. Those who don't get this, ridicule it, wishing that things were 'like they used to be'. Well, as I say to my staff regularly, 'Embrace change as a constant, and retain a healthy degree of paranoia'.
This keeps us in the eye of the hurricane, and ensures we're always concentrating on the people who make our brand what it is...
...You. Our customer.
Thank you.
Driving home last night from King of Shaves, looking forward to our Christmas Party, as usual I listened to PM on Radio 4. And was disappointed to hear that the Corus steel plant (which used to be British Steel) in Teeside was being closed, with about 1,700 jobs being lost. The reason for the closure is well known - a consortium of companies had pulled out of a long term deal to buy the plants' steel production, almost certainly as a result of the global recession. What with DubaiWorld reneging on its multi-billion dollar bond repayment (property prices have slumped substantially there, and it was a huge consumer of steel) and world-wide, demand for steel (to build things) slowing, it really came as no surprise.
But does it really have to be like this? When faced with adversity, the 'British Bulldog' spirit comes racing to the fore, with a stoicism and a 'we can get through this thing' which is often the envy of many. But it seems adversity is always the problem, we're always dealing with problems - how to pay down £180Bn worth of government borrowing; how to rebalance our country's financial infrastructure - how to run successful banks without paying mind-boggling bonuses.
And worst of all, we don't make anything any more.
Sure, a lot of what we do make is exported - for example, we do make stuff for Airbus via BAe Systems & Rolls Royce, but really, what else do we make? Not a lot.
As I write this, the world is counting down to the climate change summit in Copenhagen. Where all the world's countries are going to try to agree on how to stabilise, and ultimately reduce carbon emissions (I think it's pretty clear as we live in a 'closed system' that carbon emissions cause a greenhouse effect, the world heats up, ice melts, water levels rise, and down the track, there's a big problem).
The manufacturing of the technology and infrastructure that is going to be part of the solution of climate change is, in my opinion, going to provide a second 'industrial & infrastructure revolution'. On an absolutely enormous scale. From a commonsense perspective, it's really not too challenging to work out what will need to be imagined, designed, manufactured & installed:
- Carbon Capture & Storage. This is technology that removes carbon dioxide emissions from conventional coal-fired power stations, probably liquifies it under pressure, and stores it somewhere underground - locked away - like the coal or oil it originally emanated from.
- Really effective ion batteries that power really energy efficient cars. Yes, these still need recharging, and yes, it is 'old style' power generation plants along with Nuclear that will provide the juice. But really smart, clever, battery technology is a great area for manufacturing & development.
- Wind energy. In the past, we used windmills. Nice, attractive buildings with sails, that allowed the grinding of seeds for the manufacture of foodstuff. We currently have quite good wind turbines, made using composite material and steel, and as materials sciences improve, these will get lighter (ie less energy consumptive to make), get more efficient and over a period of 20 years, start to provide energy. I was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk - Sizewell B is just down the cost, the water offshore is very shallow, this is an ideal area to install arrays of Wind Turbines, which can provide power into the National Grid, and Lowestoft itself (where SLP are based) can service these hundreds of turbines, much as it used to do in the 70's & 80's when gas & oil rig support vessels berthed there. Ecotricity is a great example of a UK company using wind turbines (manufactured, you guessed it, not here).
- Tidal energy. Tides happen, day in, day out. You know they're going to happen - its part of the way the world works, so harnessing their energy in a substantial way, is also a 'no brainer'. Does the technology, apparatus exist for this today. Well, I know it's being tested. Not on an industrial scale, but of course, it could be. Britain is tidal, the Severn Barrage has been mooted for years, clearly this can be designed, built & installed.
- And finally there's the Sun. Ironically, the cause of our problems, and the largest solution. Many years back I wrote on a little website I designed called PlanetSicknessBag about how, in my lifetime, we'd need to install solar arrays in the deserts in Africa, places where people don't live, but where the sun shines. And in Australia. Not just a few panels, but thousands and thousands of square miles of them, all facing the sun, all either heating up water or using technology to transform sunlight into electricity. This heated water, which could then be superheated, would in turn power a turbine, which in turn produces electricity. Solar power is the single biggest area of carbon neutral power generation opportunity open to the world.
It could transform Africa's role in the world. Africa, undoubtedly the sunniest place on earth, with millions of miles of largely uninhabited desert, could power the world. At the same time, countries like Brazil could be paid to stop the deforestation of the Amazon (a huge carbon sink - trees eat carbon dioxide) and start replanting the whole area like crazy.
All of this is balanced. It makes sense. I've listened to a number of interviews with sensible scientists - British, Chinese, American - who believe this can be done.
So, what role could Britain play in it? Well, in my opinion, it could be an absolutely huge one. Over the past 2 years, simply vast amounts of money have been pledged to solve the financial woes of our hugely imbalanced, debt fuelled, non-manufacturing economy. Diverting just a fraction of this wealth into what I call 'KnowMan' - Knowledge & Manufacturing - would pay huge dividends. Britain has some of the worlds finest educational facilities, scientists, technicians and - entrepreneurs, probably second only to the USA. Now what needs to happen is that our Government, and in particular the Prime Minister and Peter Mandelson, need to garner all party support for investment into making all of the above stuff - CC&S, Wind Turbines, Tidal Arrays, better Batteries and most importantly, Solar, do a deal with Africa, design, build, install and benefit.
Where the UK could lead, the world could follow. Starting a brand new Endustrial Revolution.
We're made of the right stuff. We've simply got to start making the right stuff. If not for us, but for our kids, and their families when we'll be long gone.
Here
(As seen on The Daily Telegraph online)
British skeleton star Shelley Rudman won World Cup Gold and claimed a new record on the same track where she took an Olympic silver medal in 2006.
Rudman's second run set a track record of 58.71 seconds at Cesana, in Italy.
"The track's nice, it's a good feeling and I corrected a lot of the mistakes I had in 2006," Rudman told BBC Sport.
Read the full report here.
Play 'King of Skeleton' here!
Shelley Rudman's official website here
We've had another great sales month, and are really looking forward to exceeding sales expectations in December - 2009 has been a GREAT year for King of Shaves, and Azor. We've had some more good news today, many thanks to everyone who's emailed and tweeted me recently regarding our brand, and also my book. Yay!
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