Gillette's Marketing: History, Competition, and Future Outlook

This report analyzes Gillette's marketing and management strategies, focusing on its history, competition, and innovation within the shaving market. It evaluates actions taken by Gillette to maintain market dominance, including product innovation and pricing strategies. The report also examines the impact of razor wars and recommends future strategies for products, pricing, and marketing over the next five years, emphasizing the importance of female-centric branding, expansion into the grooming market, and leveraging e-commerce platforms. It also highlights the need for agile distribution networks and emotional marketing campaigns to foster customer loyalty and regain market share. Desklib offers a wealth of similar solved assignments and study resources for students.

Running head: MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT
Marketing and management
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1MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Evaluation of history of Gillette, competition, innovation and razor wars................................3
Actions undertaken by Gillette to maintain its dominance in the shaving market.....................4
Recommendations for products, pricing and strategies for the next 5 years.............................5

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Evaluation of history of Gillette, competition, innovation and razor wars
Based on the case study, as the Executive Director of Gillette, I personally think that
that are many things beyond just innovating the products and services of the company. To
manage innovation and ensure organisational growth and development, it is important for me
to discuss with the New Product Development team to ensure smooth business functioning.
The company was introduced with a handful of razors granted to King C. Gillette for a safety
razor. The razor contained a safe and disposable blade and with time, Gillette turned its ideas
into reality through evolvement of business and introducing new products and services in the
market as well. According to Payaud (2014), within the mature yet competitive market of
razor and blades, the company now holds a great market share all over the world. The major
innovation was experienced in the year 2006 with the introduction of Fusion 5 bladed razor,
which also influenced the clients to purchase the products that are regarded as latest and
greatest in shaving technology innovation (Payaud, 2014). Gillette is a company that often
focused on innovating the products and services, because of which, there was not much
competition till the year 1962 except the stainless steel blade made available by Wilkinson
Sword, another razor and blade company. Sword Schick is another competitor of the
organisation along with others including Braun, Godrej and HUL. Gillette evolved over time
with the introduction of Razor Cartridge, Vector Plus, Manual shaving, Vector 3, Mach 3
Turbo, etc., which are a wide range of options available for the customers to purchase from
Gillette (Gillette.com, 2018). The razor wars happened with competition from Wilkinson
Sword during the year 1962 while in 2003, Schick Company prosecuted Gillette for stating
misleading slogans such as “the world’s best shave” and “the best a man can get” (De Mooij,
2018). In 2006, the innovation evolved to make a comeback, which was possible by
introducing Fusion 5+1 blade razor for easy shaving and at the same time, manage marketing

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efficiency. Payaud (2014) also stated that to overcome the wars, Gillette made its products
available in new locations such as Soviet Union, R0mania, Czech Republic, Yugoslavia with
aims of expanding business globally (Payaud, 2014). There were issues again such as the few
products that were overpriced and thus considered as novelty products, the razors were sold
more than the cartridge refills and also the Fusion 5+1 blade was not much convenient for
getting a great shave always (Parente & Strausbaugh-Hutchinson, 2014).
Actions undertaken by Gillette to maintain its dominance in the shaving market
Previously, the market share was reduced due to the entry of Wilkinson into the
market, which made it easy for Gillette to exploit its resources properly to expand its existing
blade business. Though, new products were introduced by the company at regular time
intervals, still the market share dipped from 70 percent to slightly over 50 percent due to
repeated purchases on cartridges and use of low priced razors with cartridges of higher prices
(von Hippel & Euchner, 2013). The revenue was generated mostly from the management of
premium pricing strategy and a misconception was created by the company regarding
betterment with more blades used. As stated by Kanagal (2015), to create a greater
dominance in the shaving market, Gillette must create a female centric brand as well and shift
its focus from just men’s shaving kits to other products that can be used by the women.
Creating a loyal female customers’ base is suggested with the introduction of new products
and services and ensure that the female based marketing campaigns can raise awareness
among them, finally influence their buying behaviours at the utmost level possible (Kanagal,
2015). The promotions for female sports teams and even celebrity endorsements could act as
a great marketing approaches to attract women and influence their buying behaviours. To
maintain dominance in the shaving market, it is recommended to expand the range of
products over the grooming market and sometimes even deliver complimentary products with

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the shaving kits for providing a complete experience (Parker & Van Alstyne, 2017). To
regain its lost market share, Gillette used the tagline “Welcome back” aimed at the online
rivals for delivering razors and shaving kits at lower prices to the customers. The top athletes
further contributed to the celebrity endorsement and promoted the brand name and image to
compete with others within the shaving market. The Gillette experience has been further sold
by showcasing new talents representing boldness and confidence, which is much more than
just simple grooming and shaving.
Recommendations for products, pricing and strategies for the next 5 years.
The company has made its products available at regular stores, retail outlets and also
in e-commerce websites for creating large customer vase. It is also recommended to invest in
research and development activities for creating products that require less water such as dry
shampoos and bear washes. Making the products experimental and providing door step
services would increase band loyalty among customers and drive the sales and revenue
generation too (Gillette.com, 2018). Over the next 5 years, it is expected that Gillette will
introduce newer products in the market, though considering the fact that tying up with
Amazon Dash and Amazon can further help in assessing the ways clients use the products
and how frequently the cartridges and shaving cream are needed to be refilled by them. Based
on Parker & Van Alstyne (2017), the consideration of culture, western influences in every
places where the company wants to expand is essential for targeting the right market
segments and make the products experimental and available at lower prices for encouraging
people to use the products of Gillette (Parker & Van Alstyne, 2017). The new marketing
strategies including the “Shave for Soldier” could create emotional wellbeing and promote
the ideas of shaving considered as a greater experience for men. The pricing strategies are
implemented by assessing the prices of other competitors in the market, furthermore cope up

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with the inelastic demands for Gillette’s products through lowering down of prices of the
brand products (Gupta et al., 2016). This would create higher customer loyalty and influence
them to buy the products rather than from any other having, thereby increase the scopes for
gaining an increased market share too.
The differentiation strategy should be beneficial for differentiating the features of the
brand tem, furthermore evaluate the benefits of the brand item to make the brand position
itself in the marketplace with much ease and effectiveness. Procter and Gamble made sure to
develop an agile and flexible distribution network by aligning it with the supply chain and
ensuring that the brand products are available for the clients through distributors, retailers, e-
commerce websites, etc. (Payaud, 2014). This would also allow for establishing a strong
brand identity and create equity and trust among customers to create market dominance
within the shaving market in the next 5 years (Gillette.com, 2018).

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References
De Mooij, M. (2018). Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes.
SAGE Publications Limited.
Gillette.com. (2018). Mens Razors | Gillette UK. [online] Available at: https://gillette.com
[Accessed 10 Dec. 2018].
Gupta, S., Malhotra, N. K., Czinkota, M., & Foroudi, P. (2016). Marketing innovation: A
consequence of competitiveness. Journal of Business Research, 69(12), 5671-5681.
Kanagal, N. B. (2015). Innovation and product innovation in marketing strategy. Journal of
Management and marketing research, 18, 1-25.
Parente, D., & Strausbaugh-Hutchinson, K. (2014). Advertising campaign strategy: A guide
to marketing communication plans. Cengage Learning.
Parker, G., & Van Alstyne, M. (2017). Innovation, openness, and platform control.
Management Science.
Payaud, M. A. (2014). Marketing strategies at the bottom of the pyramid: Examples from
Nestlé, Danone, and Procter & Gamble. Global Business and Organizational
Excellence, 33(2), 51-63.
von Hippel, E., & Euchner, J. (2013). User innovation. Research-Technology Management,
56(3), 15-20.