gillette case study

Gillette's success in India hinged on its capacity to innovate. Firstly, it used innovative ways to communicate with its consumers in 2009 in order to attract a once indifferent segment. Through a creative use of traditional ads and marketing campaigns that supported the launch of the new Gillette Mach3, Gillette was able to change consumers' indifference towards shaving and create a true momentum for its products. In this way, Gillette shifted from a market-driven to a market-driving approach.

Secondly, in 2010, Gillette did something the Harvard Business Review described as "reverse innovation" to develop a product that would satisfy the needs of the lower income customer. After failing to gain significant market share in India by selling its lower and mid-tier American razors in different packaging, Gillette adopted a different approach. It went back to the source by making significant investments in market research to better understand the needs and preferences of target consumers.

Gillette understood that Indian consumers' needs, culture and attitude towards shaving were radically different from those of Western consumers. Rather than lowering performance, Gillette kept the valued customer at the core of its strategy and introduced an innovative value proposition for the value-for-money customer. Moreover, Gillette was able to deliver its promise to customers by putting in place an appropriate value network. In addition to a customised product, all the elements of the business model were coherent with the value proposition and mutually reinforcing.

Local manufacturing enabled Gillette to lower its cost structure and maintain low prices. The distribution model, not based on few large retailers, but on millions of local shops called kiranas, allowed Gillette to achieve a higher market penetration. The Gillette Guard case in India is the typical success story suitable for a marketing strategy book. However, there are some aspects of the strategy that appear to be controversial. One is related to environmental sustainability. Guard uses disposable cartridges which makes it not exactly an environmentally-friendly product.

A mistake that multinationals make is to push global brands in a one-size-fits-all strategy. Gillette's strategy of spending time and resources understanding Indian consumers' needs proved to be the key to its success.

To remain competitive, Gillette must keep the valued customer at the core of its strategy and adapt its business model accordingly.

Other companies can learn from Gillette's case in India. A recurrent mistake that multinationals make is to push global brands in a one-sizefits-all strategy. Gillette's strategy of spending time and resources understanding Indian consumers' needs proved to be the key to its success. This understanding helped it innovate through developing new products and creative communication ways to attract and engage Indian consumers.

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How Gillette Became The Most Used Razor Blade In India?

Anurag Gade

Gillette is one such brand that you have most definitely heard of, through your parents or in your friend circle. Over the years, Gillette has managed to become a common household name thanks to its popularity across all demographics. I have personally seen my grandfather use the same Gillette brand, which my dad has been fond of too for ages. So Gillette has been a part of this hierarchical journey in my family and is being passed on for three generations and would most probably be in use by the fourth generation soon.

Although Gillette is an American brand that sells personal care products, including shaving supplies, a large sum of customer base and profits comes from India. Gillette has an approximate global brand value of around 7.55 billion U.S. dollars. The Gillette Company was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, by King C. Gillette in 1901 as a safety razor manufacturer. King Camp Gillette was a salesman and investor who came up with the idea of disposable safety razor blades way back in 1895.

History of Gilette Razor in Indian Market How Gillette Razor Changed The Indian Mindset? Gillete Implementing The Golden Strategy Future of Gillette in India FAQs

History of Gilette Razor in Indian Market

Gillette entered Indian markets in 1984 when it was bought by Procter & Gamble. Gillette had to tackle and overcome various problems if they had to survive in India. The company's main hurdle wasn't any brand or competition. Instead, it was the Indian mindset that had to be changed. Gillette has only started its advertising journey in the late 2000s and has believed solely in providing high-quality, uber premium, and longer-lasting products. Midinstead low-income Indian customers would hesitate to get their hands on any Gillette's premium double-edges shaving system products as they were priced at premium rates and would rather get the same shaving services by any local barber at a nominal price.

Concerns such as it were time-consuming, caused skin irritation, and was an unpleasant experience were the main highlighted reasons which were found after extensive consumer research. Over the years, Gillette evolved and moulded itself to adjust to this weird Indian terrain and tried to educate Indians regarding grooming products. Gillette's top ten competitors are:

• Harry's, 800Razors
• Schick, Edgewell
• Grooming Lounge
• Dollar Shave Club
• Custom Shave

Only a handful of Indians know about these brands, this is the current hold which the brand has over the Indian market.

How Gillette Razor Changed The Indian Mindset?

Gillette usually relies on extensive market research and development in order to cater to a global customer base through a single product. Still, this approach was bound to fail in India, and therefore the company dropped this worldwide strategy and instead focused on India as a whole and soon after saw dramatic growth in market share. Gillette launched various campaigns in India to make people think over specific questions like:- Are clean-shaven men more successful? Did the nation prefer clean-shaven celebrities? And the big one: do women prefer clean-shaven men? It's questions like these that made men think over their choices and consciously make an effort to look better.

Upon research, Gillette came to an understanding that customers want not only affordable products but also safe and easy to use products, and Gillette was able to deliver just that in October 2010 when it launched Gillette Guard, which was the first product created for the Indian market, pricing at just 15rs per razor and 5rs for the refill cartridge.

It had of a kind and unique tagline.

"The best a man can get" is known to most people as it's unique and evokes a feeling of responsibility. It focuses on individuals trying to be the best version of themselves by making the right move and choosing Gillette. Gillette also played around the survey, which suggested that men who groom themselves and take care of their hygiene are looked at as more responsible, attractive and of higher status.

Additionally, getting young Indian celebrities ranging from film actors and actresses to athletes also helped them build a company image and cater to a younger consumer base. The advertising and marketing department of Gillette also did a fabulous job of making ad films, such as the one with an army official talking about his close call during the war and proudly boasting his 7-inch battle scar and gliding his Gillette blade over it without any hesitation. It is because of advertising like this that the brand image and its perception have been absolutely top-notch and unshakeable.

Gillete Implementing The Golden Strategy

Gillette could very well have been one of many international brands which tried and failed to adapt in the Indian market, but what helped Gillett was their open-minded and flexible approach. Gillette's business model in India shows that they dropped the idea and approach of a "one-size-fits-all strategy" wherein they would mass-produce a product and sell it globally.

They took their time and contributed it to research and development for the future of Gillette in India. Gillette spent time, money, and resources in trying to understand the Indian market and customers’ wants and needs. This understanding helped Gillette innovate and develop new and improved products and various unique methods of communication to engage and attract new and existing customers .

Future of Gillette in India

The company is showing no signs of stopping or even slowing down anytime soon with their market share as huge as it is, no other brand is even in close comparison to Gillette. The brand keeps on coming up with new and improved ideas for marketing and advertising , with the recent one including rising young talents of the Indian cricket team. The company's ever-evolving strategy and ability to adapt in any situation helps them keep a clean and smooth track and glide across smoothly. Because of this approach from Gillette, it is not only dominant in India, but it is completely dominating across the world.

Which is the best Gillette razor in India?

Gillette Mach 3 Turbo is the most trusted razor in India.

Who are Gillette competitors?

The top 10 competitors in Gillette's competitive set are:

How did Gillette enter India?

Gillette was launched in February 1993 with the launch of Gillette Shaving Products in India.

What was the firstly launched product of Gillette in India?

Gillette launched its first shaving product in India - Gillette Presto Readyshaver.

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Gillette Marketing Strategy of product innovation

If you scratch your head to recall names other than Gillette when asked about shaving razors & blades, you are like most of us. Gillette has been a brand synonymous with men’s grooming for more than 116 years & is still going strong. Such was the genius brand marketing strategy of Gillette.

It held about 70% market share in the razors & blades market at the beginning of the 21 st century. In 2005, Procter & Gamble acquired Gillette at a whopping $57 bn , the largest acquisition of any consumer goods brand to date. Razors business offers a high margin of 25-30% to P&G on account of the 750 million men across 200 countries who use Gillette blades & razors for shaving.

Naturally, this brings forth the question, if the size of the prize was so large, why were other players unable to join the party sooner? Was Gillette’s playbook so comprehensive that it kept competition at bay for over a century? If yes, why could that playbook not guard against a nearly 20% drop in market share over the last decade in the US?  Let us understand the chain of events that led to  Gillette’s dominance in the 20 th century and how the landscape changed in 2012.

A brief history of Gillette – The First Mover Advantage

King C. Gillette came up with the idea of a safety razor with disposable blades in 1895. It took him 6 years to design & apply for the first patent on disposable razors & blades. In 1903, the company sold less than 300 blades & razors, which then shot up to more than 200K in the second year.

However, it was still an expensive product for the masses until 1921, when Gillette introduced an improved version of its earlier product due to the patent expiry of its initial design. It then slashed prices of the older razor from $5 to $1 & priced the new razor at $5. This price reduction led to the massive recruitment of consumers for the brand Gillette. This marked the well-known ‘Razor & blade strategy’ genesis where razors are sold cheap while blades are priced at a premium.

Gillette’s early marketing strategy included promotion in World Series in the 1940s – the annual sporting event between the US & Canada. The consequent overachievement of their sales targets surprised the makers.

This blazed the trail for the high-voltage Super Bowl Gillette ad spots. Gillette promoted shaving as a superior experience and a route to building a confident man. In the 1989 Super Bowl, Gillette launched its biggest marketing campaign with the tagline “The Best a Man can get.”

Gillette hired the best scientists from across the world & invested heavily in blade design. In 1971, Gillette revolutionized the razor market by introducing the first twin-blade razor system named Trac II.

Gillette reaped the benefits of being a First Mover in the category; whenever it was not, it quickly developed similar versions, patented with agility & launched in geographies faster than the competition.

For instance, in the case of stainless steel alloy blades & disposable razors, the Gillette team quickly invented similar products in a year & leveraged their distribution to arrive first in many geographies. Gillette maintained high barriers to entry for competition by patenting designs, innovating regularly & acquiring small competitors.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Gillette India (@gilletteindia)

Enter 21 st century – the Modern Marketing Strategy & Mix of Gillette

Product was always at the core of the marketing mix for Gillette. This was proven by each new launch that was an improvement over the previous one. For example, Mach 3 shaving system launched in 1998 was an improved version of the Sensor model marking a shift from a 2-blade to a 3-blade system.

It took seven years and an astounding $750 million to develop. Gillette invested $300 million in a 360-degree marketing campaign to promote this on TV, radio, print, outdoor & internet to capture a share of voice.

An innovative product requires an equally strong value proposition to occupy consumer mind space. After extensive research for 2 years , Team Gillette arrived at the value proposition for Mach 3. The key insight was that shaving was unpleasant, mundane & time-consuming. Men wanted fewer strokes with minimum cuts while shaving.

Hence, Mach 3 was born – “the closest shave ever in fewer strokes and with less irritation.” It was launched globally in a span of just one year with consistent messaging with minor local variations. Trade was incentivized handsomely for stocking up & displaying in-store banners. This ensured that the fourth pillar of the marketing mix was taken care of – distribution.

For a disruptive consumer product with a great marketing engine, pricing becomes a critical leg of the marketing mix . Gillette followed value-based pricing for all its variants. Mach 3 was launched with a price 35% higher than the Sensor Excel model. And the results exceeded everyone’s expectations. Mach 3 became the highest-selling razor and blade in just six months of launch in Europe & North America, quickly becoming the first billion-dollar razor & blade brand in the world . In fact, it grew at four times the pace of its predecessor.

To pre-empt competition & increase profits, in 2005, Gillette, under P&G, launched Fusion, the world’s first 5-blade razor with the promise of an even better shaving experience, priced at a 40% price premium over Mach 3. An interesting marketing strategy executed to promote Gillette Fusion was a combination of mass & targeted campaigns.

Gillette called out the better experience and value of Fusion versus Mach 3 & urged its loyalists to upgrade to an improved shaving system. Piggybacking on its reputation in men’s grooming, Gillette ventured into categories such as shaving gels, foams, aftershave lotion for men, and Venus range for women.

The rise of Challenger brands

In 2012, a simple quirky 90-second video by an upstart took Gillette by surprise. The video was about the CEO of a company talking about razors and blades available at $1, about a monthly subscription of blades – a first in the razors & blades industry.

Yes, the Dollar Shave was a promising direct-to-consumer (D2C) startup which sold simple razors & blades good enough for a satisfactory shave. Dollar Shave Club Business Model: Pioneering the D2C industry

Harry’s was a similar venture riding the D2C wave to sell cheap but good quality razors to the socially active segment, which also acted as the early movers for the new brands.

The collective impact of these companies was such that P&G lost more than 10% market share between 2010-2015, a spectacle of the classic David and Goliath story. Gillette filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Dollar Shave, to which Dollar Shave responded by filing a countersuit eventually leading Gillette to drop the case.

In 2016, Unilever acquired Dollar Shave for $1bn, signaling the potential D2C brands commanded in the space. Gillette slashed prices by about 15% for its products later & made explicit communication to consumers about price reduction. It launched Gillette Club on the lines of Dollar Shave Club. Such open acknowledgment of competition was unprecedented from the house of Gillette.

The below chart explains what the upstarts did to the legacy of the 100-year old giant.

What went wrong in the genius marketing strategy of Gillette?

While it undoubtedly continues to be one of the best marketing organizations in the world, the competition had outdone P&G with smarter new-age marketing strategies. Here are the reasons that changed the game for Gillette so drastically in the last decade:

• Losing relevance among younger consumers: The early users of Gillette razors were getting older & a new class of users with new values & lifestyles was afoot. For the youth, Gillette signified an old-fashioned brand that their parents used. Upstarts were cool & offered customisations to the product & pricing
• Rise of Social Media & online shopping: Amazon Web Services, Facebook and YouTube started between 2004 to 2006 connected people & businesses like never before. With booming ecommerce, subscription-led model gained prominence
• Shaving razors need to be just good enough: People were ready to use a cheaper product coupled with convenience with slightly fewer features which could ensure a decent shave.
• Cost saving in Manufacturing & distribution : Bypassing the traditional distribution system to reach out to millions in a short span meant that the D2C companies could invest resources in the most important element – consumers.  They also identified high quality sourcing from China & Japan.

A bold attempt to refresh the Brand Ideol ogy

In its largest marketing pivot in the last 30 years, Gillette changed its tagline from ‘The best a man can get’ to ‘The best men can be’ & released an ad campaign titled ‘Toxic Masculinity’ in 2019. The ad painted all men with the same color with references to bullying, ‘Me Too’ campaign & had a preachy tone to what good men should do.

It faced the ire of its loyalists, who vowed not to repurchase Gillette blades on social media platforms. Even today, the dislike to like ratio is 2:1 on a total base of 2.4 mn votes & 37 mn views.

Later in July 2019, P&G announced an $8bn write-down in Gillette, citing negative growth in the category due to the beard-sporting culture as a key reason. While the razors & blades category is shrinking, the impact of mass alienation of loyalists caused by ‘Toxic Masculinity’ in addition to rising new-age competition cannot be ignored.  

Later, P&G moved to stories of local heroes. This strategy led to some great campaigns like Man Enough & The Barbershop Girls of India. The ‘Man Enough’ ad is worth mentioning as it touched the right chords with the people & was received positively.

The Indian ad with 38 million views on YouTube has garnered more views than the Global ‘Toxic Masculinity’ ad to date, with a much higher like to dislike ratio.

‘The best men can be’ campaign followed the introduction of the fifth P of Marketing by Gillette – Purpose, focusing on sustainability. Gillette launched a new brand in 2021 under the name – Planet KIND. The new brand will focus on preventing 10 million plastic bottles from entering oceans every year. The 5th P Behind the Success of Bombay Shaving Company

The Gillette story is a case that reminds us how marketing strategy is evolving continuously & brands need to reinvent and redefine value to stay relevant to changing consumer base. Value is always about the competition. Value erodes if competition prices the product much below the category norm .

While consumers will always be at the core of any brand evolution, the nuances of serving the consumer needs will vary. With the new brand ideology, focus on sustainability, a slew of start-ups now rising in many countries, and flourishing internet commerce & social media, only time will tell how brand Gillette continues to unlock more value for men around the world to give them the perfect shave.

While Gillette has always believed in providing a better value to consumers, to maintain that, new levers in the category need to be created continuously. To capture a higher pie of the market, Gillette can target the lower end of the market with cheaper variants.

The success of Gillette Guard in India, a made-for-India product keeping in mind the Indian rural user behavior, was a masterstroke. A cheaper variant can act as an entry point for many value-conscious consumers who might later upgrade within the brand.

The task for team Gillette with such a strategy would be to manage the laddering of products across aspirational and affordable spaces while managing profits for its shareholders. Aggressive product line extensions to own the complete shower space for men can be another interesting strategy. They can also work towards becoming more relevant for women in the future.

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Subir is a Senior Category Manager by profession & a Creator by passion. He loves to connect the dots and develop new perspectives in the field of E-commerce, Sales, Marketing & Technology. With a career spanning across sales, category management, consulting & engineering over the course of 7 years, Subir continues to explore emerging sectors & trends. He has a deep interest in music, behavioral psychology & writing. In his leisure time, he writes poetry & creates music to soothe the soul.

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How an Influential Idea repositioned Gillette

• Marketing to men
• Effectiveness studies
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• WOM, Viral campaigns

The WARC Effectiveness Awards, in association with LIONS, is a new global competition that integrates the Creative Effectiveness Ladder. Every winning and shortlisted entry will receive feedback on how they’ve performed from judges across the six award categories.

Find out more

Gillette’s We Believe campaign earned its place on the first level of the Creative Effectiveness Ladder where Influential Ideas attract attention and controversy, writes Lucy Aitken.

The first level of the Creative Effectiveness Ladder , a joint WARC/Cannes Lions initiative, focuses on Influential Idea campaigns. These campaigns use creativity to maximise engagement and sharing, resulting in the campaign over-achieving on campaign metrics and media efficiency.

You’ll be familiar with these campaigns: they get widely shared on social media, covered in mainstream media and frequently pulled apart by industry commentators. They often feed into wider issues in culture and society. And they often attract more than their fair share of controversy.

The spark that started a conversation

One example from WARC’s CaseFinder database is Gillette’s controversial We Believe , which changed its long-standing ‘The Best a Man Can Get’ tagline into ‘The Best a Man Can Be’. Launched in January 2019, it elicited an avalanche of likes, dislikes, comments and shares. It was meant to. This was an important evolution for Gillette and an overt puncturing of what the P&G-owned male grooming brand itself described as “toxic masculinity”. At the Cannes Lions Festival in 2019, Marc Pritchard, P&G’s chief brand officer, described it as “the spark that said: ‘We’re going to put a point of view out there and start a conversation.’”

A necessary leap

Using a YouTube film to transform a classic tagline into a provocation around the future of masculinity in the post #metoo era was a big leap. And while Gillette realised that this approach would attract criticism, it was a leap that was needed: the brand was at risk of losing relevance with younger millennials. As a market-leading brand that had stood for ‘the best’ for decades, it spotted an opportunity to lead a conversation around a new ‘best’ for the next generation of men and acted upon it.

Campaigns like this one are often on this first rung of the Creative Effectiveness Ladder because they have recognised the value in taking a stand on a particular issue, even if it will attract some negative sentiment: the Gillette work continues to split opinion to this day.

Defying expectations

In The Effectiveness Code , a report that accompanied the launch of The Creative Effectiveness Ladder, James Hurman, author and marketing effectiveness expert, points out that many campaigns found on this rung of the ladder swim against the tide in terms of how big companies normally act. That’s certainly true of Gillette. No one saw it coming. No one expected it. No one predicted that Gillette would be taking a stand on the very issue to which it had contributed over decades of communications depicting square-jawed, clean shaven men.

Making - and measuring - a statement

One way to unlock Level One of the Creative Effectiveness Ladder are strategies such as capitalising on a major moment, taking the side of the consumer and fighting against injustice. Gillette was aiming to do all three. Hand in hand with that goes a dedication on the part of marketers to track and measure campaign-level metrics such as recall, social shares and earned media value.

According to the case study, the video received 110 million video views across all digital platforms and earned more than 19.5 billion media impressions worldwide. Eighteen months since its release, it has generated more than 34 million views on YouTube and a lot of comments, many of them far from positive.

However, as Pritchard said in Cannes last summer: “Gillette had been about masculinity for 110 years… it was time to make a different statement.”

A starting point

Level One of the Creative Effectiveness Ladder can serve as a powerful starting point for brands to climb higher up the Ladder in terms of effectiveness. The challenge is to go beyond attracting short-term attention or controversy and move the needle in terms of brand and commercial metrics.

Although most of the metrics in the paper are definitely Level One, the Gillette case study hints at more: 65% of viewers were more likely to buy Gillette products and the brand experienced a sales spike: double-digit growth in online sales in January 2019, when the film went live.

“Where we can really discern our greatest impact has been in our e-commerce business,” Pritchard noted. Gillette’s repositioning helped lure customers away from DTC rivals such as Harry’s and Unilever-owned Dollar Shave Club.

Short- and long-term success

While a steely resolve is required to press play on a campaign that will split opinion, marketers can be reassured that it is more likely to reach at least level one on the Creative Effectiveness Ladder. For brands with a well-established heritage, such campaigns will cause ripples – but sometimes that’s what’s required to kickstart a profound shift in brand reputation.

As Pritchard summarised at Cannes 2019: “Gillette is probably the only brand that could have done it because of its long-term credibility. This was the right thing for this brand. It’s about role modelling. It’s about positive behaviour. The message was a good message and it was timely for Gillette.”

From Lucy Aitken

• How Gordon’s turned from a woolly jumper into a dynamic challenger to net IPA Silver
• ‘An amazing decade’ for John Lewis makes it IPA Gold
• IPA Grand Prix winner Tesco makes rhetoric about servicing customers a reality
• View more News and Opinion

About the author

Lucy Aitken Managing Editor – Case Studies, WARC

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Lucy Aitken is WARC's Managing Editor – Case Studies.

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Home » Management Case Studies » Case Study: Product Innovation at Gillette

Case Study: Product Innovation at Gillette

Gillette is considered as the first choice of both male and females. Both genders 16 years of age or above are the target market for Gillettes shaving products. The brand marks its success to a passion for innovation and new product development . The Gillette Company was established in 1901 and then acquired by Procter and Gamble in 2005 for US$57 billion. After the success revealed by Gillette in its third-quarter results in October 2004, the company launched several new products, including the M3Power razor for men, the Venus Divine razor for women, and two new electric toothbrushes, the Professional Care 8000 and the Sonic Complete.

Since the inception of Gillette, a strong commitment to innovation has kept the company razor sharp. Gillette is renowned for its absolute dominance of the wet shaving, dry shaving and personal grooming markets. In fact, each and every division of the company is profitable, fast-paced, number one world-wide in its markets and anchored by a steady flow of innovative new product offerings .

Every year, Gillette introduces its new products into the market. In December 2004, Gillette introduced two new women’s razors under the name of its highly popular Venus brand.

New product introduction is the mantra of a company-wide culture that supports innovation . Gillette encourages innovation that will cannibalize its existing product hits. The company also accepts blunders and dead ends as a normal course of activity in terms of creativity and innovation . It accepts that it must generate dozens of new product ideas to get just one success in the marketplace. Gillette strongly encourages its people to take risks in a creative ways in applying cutting-edge technologies to find substantial improvements that make life easier for customers. New product development is complex and expensive affair but Gillette’s mastery of the process has put the company unique in its own class.

Brands that are competing with Gillette such as Bic and Wilkinson have managed to claim handsome shares of the disposable-razor market, and Norelco and Remington compete effectively in electric razors with Gillette’s Braun unit. But Gillette with its significant and stunning technological superiority operates with virtually no competition worldwide in the burgeoning cartridge-razor sector. Supported by Gillette’s biggest new-product launch up to that point, the Mach3 strengthened the company’s stranglehold on this market. Within only a little time span of its introduction in the market, Mach3 razors and blades were number one sellers. The new M3Power system is the beginning and evolution of the Mach3 product line.

At Gillette, it is a ritual that almost everyone gets involved in one way or another with new-product development. Even people who do not participate directly in the product design and development are likely pushed into service-testing prototypes. Every working day at Gillette, 200 unshaven employees march to the second floor of the company’s gritty South Boston manufacturing and research plant to evaluate razors for sharpness of blade, smoothness of glide and ease of handling. When done, they enter their views and judgments into a computer.

Gillette mainly excels in bringing new product to the market . The company knows that, once introduced, fledging products need generous manufacturing and marketing support to thrive in the competitive consumer-products market place. To deliver the required support, Gillette has devised a formula that calls for R&D, capital investment, and capital expenditures, which it name it collectively as “growth drivers”.

In addition to its innovative product marketer, Gillette is a sports marketing pioneer. The company is in partnership with NASCAR through its “Young Guns” program. The company’s sponsorship of sports events started from 1910, when baseball players were featured in advertisements for the original Gillette Safety Razor. In Massachusetts, the home of the NFL’s New England Patriots is called “Gillette Stadium.” Gillette also has a close relationship with Major League Baseball, World Cup soccer, the PGA Tour, and the National Hockey League.

Thus, we can confidently say that superior new products combined with innovative marketing programs have been the basis of Gillette’s remarkable success. In February 2005, the company reported record annual and fourth-quarter results with double-digit percentage increases in net sales. CEO James Kilts attributes the successful year to the company’s new product achievements, “Gillette has come up with excellent results across the board, fueled by our largest and most successful new products effort ever. Key success attributes are: M3Power, the first battery powered wet shaving system; the Venus Divine premium system for women; the Oral B Professional Care8000 power rechargeable toothbrush; and the Sonic Complete, the Company’s first entry in the sonic segment of brushing. 2005 will be another very good year. It promises to again be our most active year for new products.”

Success stories like these made Gillette a desirable acquisition for Procter & Gamble. The deal to acquire Gillette is the largest in history of P&G to date.

Gillette Background:

Gillette is a remarkable brand when it comes to shaving products. Since 2005, it has been acquired by consumer product giant, Procter & Gamble. Procter & Gamble commonly known as P&G is a continuous product innovation and development company. It has gathered large amounts of revenue by its ritual of product innovation and development. Every year it introduces new products to its product line particularly in Gillette division. It also engages its employees in its product development program and if people are not directly involved in this, then the troop of 200 unshaved men are pushed to check on the razors by shaving from them and then are required to write their reviews about the razors in the computer. By this the author meant that it is kind of habit in P&G especially in the Gillette division that every person is engaged in product innovation. The company knows that by constant innovation and new product development, the company will only get a fraction of the success rate but it still continues this practice and earns large amounts of revenue from this. It also has the policy of cannibalizing its existing product hits.

Acquiring Gillette is one of the most significant decisions by P&G in terms of earning high percentage of profits. It is not wrong to say that Gillette is one of the most profitable units of P&G.

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Gillette: How Gillette Appealed to Gen Z

Campaign Summary

Gillette, a century-old global men's grooming brand, dominates the wet shaving category. The increase of current sales largely relies on the growth of unit price, but the sales volume rises slowly in the industry, particularly with gen Z users whose proportion and growth rate are lower than other users. Thus, the company needed to appeal to the younger demographic.

Younger people regard Gillette as a traditional stereotype. How to appeal to more new users in the young market became an important business issue for Gillette. Gillette teamed up with Honor of King, China's top esports mobile game with 300 million active users, to renew the brand image, enhance the brand's youthful attributes, create a cool and trendy image, and close the distance with the younger generation.

Target Audience:

Attracting new users is the key to brand growth, and capturing young users means starting where most young people are. Thus, Gillette chose to leverage mobile games, a hand-held market with over half a billion active users daily. In the world of hand-held games, young people are willing to empower their characters, persevere for better results, work as a team, and even show confidence and face diverse challenges.

The brand's target audience for the campaign focused on men between the ages of 18 and 30 who are also mobile esports fans across city tiers in China.

Across cities, Chinese men between the ages of 18 and 22 are heavy users of the game Honor of King, and spend more than five days per week on the game. As such, they seek out news and updates, follow livestreams, and participate in competitions.

Creative Strategy:

The campaign focused on portraying Gillette as one of the necessary items to help young people feel confident and active. Through the creative theme of "#Equipment for your skin, carry you to be king#," young people connect their confidence, positivism, and sense of conviction. The message showed that Gillette enables young people to better organize their image in front of the mirror, helps them face critical moments in life, and empowers them to have more confidence and the energy to overcome challenges.

From the in-depth combination of Gillette's star products and the characteristics of the game heroes, the product embodied the spirit of heroes, customizing high-value co-branded products, and leveraged the custom creative short film that correlates the shaving technique and hero skills.

In the past three years, Gillette Greater China continuously invested in the mobile esports area, such as a collaboration with Cross Fire in 2018, with KPL (official competition of Honor of King) in 2019, with KPL team Estarpro in 2020, and with Honor of King itself in 2021.

From previous learnings, Gillette found that consumers are more interested in the game and characters itself. Therefore, the cooperation between Gillette and Honor of King is on the excavation of players' spiritual demands in the game, catching the best fit with the brand role, empowering players to have more spiritual experiences, and sublimating the game spirit of Honor of King.

Overall Campaign Execution:

Ninety percent of the advertising budget was spent on mobile devices. Based on the rapid development of domestic mobile communication, the viewing traffic and viewing time of mobile content are higher than traditional communication methods.

Also, according to the characteristics of the hand-held game and the target group, the company used refined content customization with multidimensional contact placement to precisely launch the traditional category into the game player's circle.

With full coverage touchpoints in the game players, the co-branded products merged into the game scene, opening the whole chain of consumption and entertainment, and merged both worlds together.

Mobile Execution:

The players preferred social platforms such as Weibo, TikTok, and Douyu. As such, the company launched interactive topics and competitions to create discussion among players. Yinuo, the popular e-sports player, worked as the spokesperson recommending millions of fans.

Business Impact (including context, evaluation, and market impact)

Pre-events accounted for 17.9 percent of young people's top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) in first-tier cities and ranked third in the shaving category. The marketing campaign reached over 200 million players with strong exposure and garnered 50 million views on the Douyu platform, surging to No. 2 on the platform ranking.

Gillette's brand awareness in first-tier cities increased by 8.6 percent compared to the same period last year and ranked No. 1 in the shaving category (including electric shavers). Young people's brand preference for Gillette increased significantly by 50 percent, and users have a higher favorable opinion of the co-branding, praising the product appearance and advertising creativity, with a better seeding effect (17 percent). The campaign attracts more discussions among younger groups (82 percent of which are under 25 years old).

Also, in the sales performance, new customers account for 70 percent during the campaign period, of which the highest percentage was the main target group of gen Z (66 percent higher than before the campaign), and the actual sales performance in April exceeded the forecast by 276 percent. The brand's collaborations helped sales exceed 10 million.

The campaign was promoted at a tight pace, with posters released on Weibo and a live broadcast on Douyu. At the peak of the campaign, a co-branded video was released on Gillette's official blog announcing the official sale of the product, as well as the promotion of the product through Weibo's hot search for new equipment and recommendations.

Categories: | Industries: | Objectives: Lead Generation | Awards: X Finalist

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Gillette Case

Executive Summary Gillette is a world known multinational company in shaving products market and holds more than 70% market share (Hartline 2007) in this segment. Since its very inception in 1901, Gillette has always been envied for delivering the finest shaving care products both for men and women. Besides, it has also diversified its product lines extending it to toothbrushes, toiletries, stationeries, cosmetics and other household appliances.

Originated in Boston, Gillette has been dominating its domestic market in the United States since starting and then slowly and gradually becoming a global leader. This case study provides an overview of the constant product innovation by Gillette throughout its’ history and scope for further research and development in an innovation driven wet shaving market. The case also discusses the strategy of Gillette for further expanding its dominant market share around the world under the ownership and guidance of Procter and Gamble (P;G) and making Fusion – a first five-bladed razor its flagship brand.

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While doing this Gillette also has to face stiff competition from its premier competitors, Wilkinson Sword-Schick Company and BIC. Though being at the top, Gillette now deals with the problem of product innovation in a somewhat stagnant and mature shaving market and needs to find other ways to remain on top. The possible solutions relate to acquiring its competitors’ business, developing and expanding the women’s market and further reducing the prices to reach more customers.

It calls for some broad recommendations and implementation. SWOT Analysis Internal Strengths • World leader in producing extraordinary shaving care products of world class quality through constant innovation and successful in most of them • Holding a major share of the global wet shaving market (more than 70%) (Hartline 2007) • Huge financial resources at its disposal giving Gillette an edge over the others for extensively undertaking Research and

Development (R;D) activities for product development and innovation • Well established production and marketing channels worldwide • Diversification of Gillette’s product lines to toiletries, cosmetics and other home appliances, thus providing a complete range of shaving solutions • Fair price of all the major shaving products (customers get the value for money) • Differential marketing i. e.

it adopts different marketing strategies for different market segments from country to country (Hartline 2007)

Internal Weaknesses • Some analysts consider that Gillette is growing slowly in the world market and is still below its’ actual potential (Hartline 2007) • Past diversification activities and acquisitions have not been very successful (Hartline 2007) • Gillette’s involvement in too many lawsuits increase the company costs and also affect its’ brand value (Hartline 2007) • Predominant reliance on single product line- 2/3rd profits from razor blade and razor division • Delayed response to competitors’ moves The company seem to diversify haphazardly External Opportunities • Increasing demand for personal grooming products worldwide due to sociocultural trends • A huge portion of global population both men and women shaving with a razor blade • No close competition from any other company (Schick claims only 18% of the market and BIC holds about 5%) (Hartline 2007) • Majority of Gillette’s sales is generated outside the United States (more than 60%) (Hartline 2007) External threats Many industry analysts believe that Gillette has come to an end of its’ historical product innovations in the already grown-up wet shaving market • Industry analysts believe that Schick may introduce a six-bladed razor anytime in response to Gillette’s five-bladed Fusion • Growing popularity of use and throw away disposable razors (serious competition from BIC in this segment of the market) • Problem of cannibalization with most of its products Problem Identification and Analysis Today no company can survive in any type of market without continuous development and innovation of its products and services.

Product innovation can be in terms of introducing/creating a new product/service or significant improvements in the existing one in relation to its technological specifications, components and materials, incorporated software, user friendliness or other functional characteristics (Weyrich 1998). Gillette has always followed the concept of innovation, making it a part of its corporate culture, the result is some technologically superior products in the consumer products industry and most importantly, sales boosting for the company.

Annexure 1 provides details (Gillette Fusion Case Study 2008) of some of the razor innovations introduced by Gillette over the years including the first double-bladed razor in 1971 (Trac II), loaded blades in 1990 (Sensor), the three-blade razor in 1998 (Mach3) and finally the five-bladed razor in 2005 (Fusion). These include both manual and battery operated versions. It also introduced razors specifically for women like Sensor, Sensor Excel in 1993 and Venus.

Some of its products sales hit $ billion mark winning many awards also for technology.

But the game of innovation has often turned ugly with each of the company trying to bring in something new every time and filing lawsuits against each other. This is what happened when Schick introduced Quattro- the world’s first four bladed razor in 2003. This also created the battle for upmanship. The main problem discussed here in the case is that how Gillette can further enlarge its already dominant market share in an industry which is purely based on innovation and where many analysts believe that the companies in this market segment have reached the end of meaningful product innovation.

Given this what marketing strategies should Gillette adopt as it moves into the future to maintain Fusion as P&G’s 24th billion dollar brand? This is significant if Gillette wants to remain ahead of its competitors and maintain its dominance.

Generation and Evaluation of Alternative Solutions Innovations take time and we can see that (refer Annexure 1) there is a big time difference between different razor innovations done by Gillette (last one being Fusion, 2007).

Given the limited scope of something new to come-up in the shaving market too early, Gillette may adopt the following strategies to maintain its current leadership in the future as well with reference to Fusion: 1) A Merger, Acquisition and Collaboration- Gillette has done this in the past also, acquiring the business of its competitors or providing the product/service in collaboration like when Wilkinson Sword due to its limited resources could not compete with Gillette sold much of its blade business to the latter.

Adopting this technique even today can reduce its competition significantly especially in the disposable razors segment where BIC is the leader. This way it can gain BIC’s market share which is very strong in Europe. But as case data shows Gillette’s most of the acquisitions have not been successful and have also led to a decrease in its market share. 2) Gillette can also reduce the prices of its razors and replacement cartridges to be more competitive in future.

When compared to Schick and BIC’s prices Gillette is at a disadvantage irrespective of superior technology. Presently many people may be shaving with other company’s razor considering only the price factor especially in the underdeveloped and developing countries. Most of its razors and cartridges’ price is high compared to Schick and BIC. Following the price reduction strategy can surely create new customers adding to the size of its market and may also increase the frequency of buying by existing customers, thus maintaining the market share.

But heavy expenditure on R&D and promotional activities ultimately increases the selling price of the product which also cannot be avoided. 3) Gillette should also focus on Women’s market as this market is still underdeveloped (especially in Europe where only one-third women wet shave) due to less number of women shaving with a razor compared to men.

So Gillette should introduce razors specifically for women (the last one was Venus in 1998) and further penetrate the market. Recommendations

Considering the above alternatives, the more urgent for Gillette is to cut down the prices keeping in view the competition in future and defending its market share. Because people today want good quality products at reasonable prices and what may seem as reasonable today may tend to be looked as costly tomorrow by the customers, in spite of good quality. Consequently people may go for other brands’ Shaving blades and Razors which will decrease Gillette’s market share and profitability in the long run. Implementation

Gillette, rather than conducting R;D activities in its own laboratories should decentralize them and hire well-reputed agencies/organisations specialising in it because setting up own laboratories and then hiring experts is a very costly affair especially considering the size of Gillette. The direct impact will be in the form of reduced prices of its products and saving millions of dollars also which can be further reinvested or else used in marketing the product.

This will automatically expand its market share by creating new customers and maintaining the present ones by increasing the frequency of their buying.

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Gillette Fusion Brand Challenges Case Study

Overview of the situation, statement of the main problem, industry issues, organizational issues, discipline issues, list of critical factors, alternative solutions, recommendation/rationale and justification.

In the world of men’s personal care, brands do not come any bigger than Gillette. The American company has been a global leader in the market ever since it was founded in 1903.

The company has been renowned for launching innovative and leading global brands over the years, hence its dominance in the global wet shaving industry. Such brands have over the years included Trac II, Atra, Sensor, SensorExcel, and Mach 3.

Despite its position as a market leader, Gillette has had to deal with very high competition from other industry players such as Schick. Strong competition from competitors has always been a strong motivation for Gillette to continue coming up with innovative solutions.

Gillette was already a market leader when Procter & Gamble took over the company. It had the Gillette Mach 3 as its flagship product and it was performing well in the market. However, in a bid to stay at the top, Gillette proceeded to launch a new five blade razor named Gillette Fusion.

Achieving a $1 billion sales target from the new Gillette Fusion brand proved more difficult than had been anticipated. The main problem was that despite the anticipated record sales, the product was still not performing to the expected level (Bateson & Hoffman, 1999).

Allegations have always been rife that Gillette’s competitors were copying many of the company’s models and products so as to try and catch up with the market leader. However, Gillette products nearly always managed to stay ahead of the competition. For a long time, the Mach 3 brand had completely taken control of the market, but Gillette being an ambitious company went ahead to launch a five blade razor, the Gillette Fusion.

The company knew that despite the presence of increasingly credible competitors in the market, Gillette had always managed to penetrate the market successfully. Therefore, there were no worries on the part of the company’s management that Fusion would soon follow the steps of Mach 3 and become an industry leader.

Being the global market leader meant that Gillette had both the knowledge of the market and the technical know-how to continue dominating the market. In addition to Gillette’s competitive advantage, the financial might of the new owners, Procter & Gamble, ensured that Gillette Fusion was destined for market dominance. However, things did not turn out as had been expected, at least not in the short term.

The company lacked an effective marketing strategy to enable the Fusion take over the market (Aaker & Mills, 2005). Outcompeting the market leader, the Gillette Mach 3, proved to be a daunting task, especially in the wake of customers’ preferences still lying with the Mach 3.

In an effort to take over the market, the company had overlooked important marketing strategies that could have laid ground and solidified the market for the Fusion.

For instance, the marketing strategy had failed to explain sufficiently to the potential customers why the five bladed Fusion was better than the three bladed Mach 3. It was foolhardy on the part of the company to expect customer loyalty to the new brand by simply saying it was a better razor without demonstrating the advantages to the customers (Aaker & Mills, 2005).

Gillette has been able to survive underhand tactics by competitors largely due to its ability to come up with better ideas on a regular basis. This innovative advantage has always been followed by calculated decisions regarding the new products. Such decisions have included slow and protracted marketing of products to specific markets and gradual increase in advertisement coverage (Dann & Dann, 2007).

For the Fusion, however, the company was too quick to abandon time tested methods in favor of quick market penetration.

What the company would have done was to first launch Fusion within the domestic market, and then distribute the product to other markets gradually. Alternatively, the company should have gone slowly on advertising so as to ensure that customers got the gist of what the Fusion exactly stands for (Walker et al. 2012).

Among the ideas that have always served Gillette well has been rebranding their products so as to achieve more sales. Rebranding has not involved major product redesigns in most cases (Ansoff, 1988), but rather unsophisticated alterations such as changing the color or the shape of the handle (Brown, 1997).

This proven track record of the brand was, thus, enough to convince the Procter & Gamble executives that the new Fusion brand could become successful.

In addition to superior distribution capabilities, Gillette, and by extension the Procter & Gamble group, are giant corporations with capabilities to launch massive marketing initiatives globally (Bateson & Hoffman, 1999).

This is evidenced by Gillette’s previous hit product, Mach 3, for which the company spent over $300 million in marketing in 1999, with $100 million alone spent in the US. Such financial might is indispensable especially when launching an innovative product worldwide, a product which a company has spent billions in research and development and production (Brown, 1997).

Apart from the financial might of the company, Procter & Gamble were also optimistic on the success of the new Fusion razor due to the record of previous and the current Gillette razors. In all their razors, Gillette has always been keen to make the shaving process as comfortable as possible for its clients. The innovative blades were always aligned in such a way that they caused minimum irritation when shaving.

In end user production, the attention to detail paid to the smallest of details can be a major boost in product differentiation, especially for companies selling essentially the same product (Aaker, 2005). This attention to detail in terms of customer comfort was one of the key selling points for Gillette over their competitors.

Marketing strategies

In order to turn the Fusion into a billion dollar brand, the executives at Procter & Gamble had identified five strategies. The aim of these strategies was to ensure that the Gillette Fusion was essentially transformed into Gillette’s flagship brand. The strategies were to focus on enhancing the sales of the Fusion through advertisements, packaging, pricing, and ad hoc marketing of the brand (McMurry, 1978).

One of the major hurdles that the company had to overcome was that of customer preference (Walker et al., 2012). Gillette already had a highly successful product in Mach 3 in the market. However, in order to propel the Fusion into becoming Gillette’s signature product, the company had to sway customers away from Mach 3 (Chopra & Meindl, 2001).

This is a challenge that many multi-product companies face; whereby even with the success of their previous products, they still have to push new brands in the market to compete with their own products (Aaker, 2005).

Pricing strategy

For Procter & Gamble to achieve their target of making the Fusion a billion dollar brand, the company has to sell the product in numbers. Therefore, retailing the new product at larger volumes would require that Fusion is sold at a lower price (Ferrell & Hartline, 2005).

This is, however, not a viable line of action considering that the new product is better in performance, and the producer spent huge sums of money on product development (Jain, 2004).

Gillette finds itself in a problematic situation where it has to attract consumers by favorable pricing, while at the same time ensuring that the product has a positive return on investment. The company must create a balance while ensuring that the ultimate price that it arrives at does not price the product out of the market (Kaplan & Norton, 1996).

Packaging strategy

The way a product is packaged can have a significant bearing on the overall volume that it retails (Kerin et al., 2003). Packaging is a smart marketing strategy in which a company can boost the sales of a product by influencing the thought patterns of the intended consumer (Doyle, 2000). Gillette knew this, and thus opted for innovative ways to sell their Fusion brand.

The unit price of the Gillette Fusion was the highest for any razor brand by the company. In order to boost sales, the producer wanted to increase access to the product.

The Mach 3 was selling as a set of four cartridges per package; therefore, in order to enable more consumers to access the Fusion brand, the package was reduced to 3 cartridges so as to retail at comparable prices. The advantage of such a strategy is that it gives consumers a sense of value for money, while maintaining the unit price of the product (Kotler, 2003).

The executives at Procter & Gamble should not rush the Gillette Fusion into the market. This is because it is the rush to put the Fusion in the market that revealed the marketing strategy’s fatal flaws.

In order to gain more market share for the Fusion, the company ought to focus more on the basic principle of marketing and advertising, which is educating the consumer (McMurry, 1978). Only after the consumer is educated about the inherent advantages of a new product can marketing have its intended purpose of boosting sales (Kerin et al., 2003).

Fusion is a superior product brand due to its higher performance and design and, therefore, its price is justified. However, quoting performance statistics is not enough for consumers to spend more on a product.

The best solution is to first change the perception of the consumers towards the product, and only then can the consumers be willing to pay the quoted price on account of personally seeing the added utility (Pride & Ferrell, 2000). Consequently, the company should not reduce the units in a pack for the sake of hoodwinking the public into thinking that they are getting value for their money (Kotler, 2003).

Gillette should give the new product time to percolate the market. Too many changes with the aim of boosting sales can end up hurting the product’s market share. The negative impact could come from the fact that the target consumers are not given sufficient time to get used to the product before major changes are enacted over and over again (Pride & Ferrell, 2000).

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Chopra, S. & Meindl, P. (2001). Supply chain management, strategy, planning and operation. New Jersey, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Doyle, P. (2000). Value-based marketing: Marketing strategies for corporate growth and shareholder value. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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Kaplan, R. S. & Norton, D. P. (1996). Balanced scorecard. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

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IvyPanda. (2024, April 12). Gillette Fusion Brand Challenges. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gillette-fusion-company/

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Gillette Fusion Brand Challenges." April 12, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gillette-fusion-company/.

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