What a week!
I flew out to Japan last Saturday, arriving Sunday morning aboard Virgin 900 out of Heathrow. Minor drama on the runway, when the captain said one of the wheels had a puncture, but this turned out to be a computer glitch. Still a little nervy though...
Monday & Tuesday were intensive work sessions with our Japanese partners, Kai Corporation of Japan on pre-launch activities, and ensuring that the press launch itself, to be held at the Virgin Cafe in Shinjuku, Tokyo, would run as smooth as a shave with King of Shaves Azor.
I was to present, along with Koji Endo, the President & CEO of Kai, and wanted to ensure I was able to say a little more than 'Konnichiwa' (Hello). I therefore spent a lot of time with one of our top liaison executives preparing to speak a good fifth of my speech in Japanese. Apparently, I did it well enough that some of the (many) assembled press thought I was going to give the whole King of Shaves/Azor presentation in Japanese. That would have been as challenging as taking on 'Wilkinette' if not more so!
The launch was judged a great success - I am delighted that Japan features so early on our global roll-out of Azor, and am pleased and delighted to be working with such professional partners. Thanks must go to the agency involved, and for all the hard work that everyone put in there.
Finally, I enjoyed a couple of glasses of Guiness, before we left for a well earned relaxing evening, prior to flying back today.
Whilst I was away, the Daily Mail ran a huge story on the extortionate price Gillette are charging for their Fusion cartridges. This was picked up by The Sun, another major daily newspaper today - pic of the article can be seen in this blog. We have been closely monitoring the sales of our shaving 'hardware' competitors since launch, and when we see the year's market sales data in a month or so's time, are confident on being very close to, if not actually in double digit sales territory. It just goes to show when you introduce a product that marries excellent performance with the correct price, you can really upset a market that many believe is impossible to challenge within.
Except my team, and I.
So, good luck to our partners in Japan - you can see some of the news features by clicking here (as long as you can read Japanese) and I'm looking forward to the next exciting instalment in our story, our mission to help people "shave better and save money" - don't forget to pre-register at www.MoneyShavingExpert.com
Ariguato,
Will
(ps - many thanks to "T.O." & to Scott Gibson, one of our shareholders, for your great support & counsel during the visit - much appreciated).
