Sitting downstairs in the house I shared with my then girlfriend in West Ruislip, opening a letter from Companies House acknowledging the incorporation of “Knowledge & Merchandising Inc. Ltd.’ with the company registration number 2808675.  I owned 99 shares, my girlfriend as Company Secretary had 1.  I had with me my two fox terrier puppies, then 3 months old, Moke & Dudley and a few thousand empty 10ml bottles with a logo ‘Kings Shavesystem’ printed onto a plastic, which I found out had come off in the shower (not waterproof).  I had no car (having been made redundant) and no reference point whatsoever for founding a men’s shaving brand, other than the fact that when I shaved with the oil I’d mixed in the upstairs bathroom sink, I didn’t get razor burn.

192 Directory Enquiries was the equivalent of Google in 1993, Windows was yet to launch proper and I worked on a 16Mhz Elonex computer with a single floppy drive.  You either wrote letters to people, or if you had their fax number (very difficult to get) you faxed them.

I was at home 90% of the day (I always walked the dogs at lunchtime, often up to the postbox and back) and as well as shaving with my oil, was dreaming up other ideas in case that never went anywhere.  One of those was the Body Glove clothing line, that somehow or other we might get UK distribution rights for, another was a phonics based learning system for young children called “Shirley’s Early Learning Series” that my Mum had written, my Dad had illustrated (both were teachers) and that I was trying to get a publisher interested in.

Oh, and I’d written 59 pages of a novel called “We Three Kings” which charted the rise and fall (and maybe rise again) of three brothers called King (follow up books, if that was ever successful were to be called “Gold, Frankincense & Murder” and “Wise Men don’t Lie”.

I was spinning plates.  A trait many, if not all entrepreneurs are familiar with.  Hoping that if I kept enough aloft, I’d get traction with one.  Most people thought that would be Body Glove (it wasn’t) but turned out to be King of Shaves (we got a listing in Harrods in September 1993).

From small acorns…

Having been made redundant, I decided to A) be the master of my own destiny and B) manufacture and/or marketing something physical.  Why?  Well, having grown up in the Thatcher years, I felt Britain was no longer seen as a base for making great product, and I wanted to change that.  I also believed that having worked previously in the advertising & marketing business, working in the product business (once you’d made a success of the product) you’d have more time to spend on making that business bigger.

I don’t intend to go into these early days in much detail – for a full rundown, buy my book and have a read.  But I do remember acutely, 20 years on – how I felt, what was at stake, and that anything could be done, if you worked hard and had a great product, brand or service to run.

Between 1993 and 2003 we enjoyed quite a run at KMI.  In 1997, my business partner Herbie Dayal and I approached Ray Kelvin, the owner of Ted Baker, then doing sales of £14m (total) and about to float as a PLC to license their brand name onto a fragrance (we’d also written to Paul Smith, but he hadn’t got back to us).  Ray thought we wanted to sell our King of Shaves shaving oil from Ted Baker stores, and asked “who’d heard of King of Shaves?”  Luckily his then head of design, Ed Potter commented he liked it, and we were able to get the meeting back on track, and in time (September 1998) launch Ted Baker Skinwear at Selfridges, a minimal bottle with a neoprene stitched cover, which the edgy design company StyloRouge, owned by Rob O’Connor helped us design.

KMI (from which King of Shaves is now de-merged) still work with Ted Baker today, 16 years on – one of their longest license partnerships.

Between 1995-2003, we launched a slew of innovative men’s grooming products & brands.  Remember then, it was Gillette, the newly cool Lynx (via the Lynx Effect, which my wife Tiger Savage co-created whilst at BBH in 1995) and Colgate Palmolive.  No Nivea for Men (they launched in 1999) or L’Oreal Men Expert (created 2004).  Nope, it was just us, in the vanguard of men’s shaving & skincare with unique products such as our shaving oils, our tubed aloe rich shaving gels (AlphaGels), our K-Series men’s skincare range (now supplanted by our  Superskin range) and innovations like a natural deodorant (Pro-Deo) and a silicon based shaving oil (Kinexium).

In 1998, our offices (above a small supermarket in Chalfont St. Giles) burned down (the delivery pizza operation downstairs caught fire) and we ultimately relocated via High Wycombe to Chesham, firstly in a beautiful old building called the Bury, then into a series of industrial units on Asheridge Road.

We launched the Fish ‘Unisexy’ range of men’s & women’s haircare products at Boots in 2001, and in 2003 celebrated our 10th anniversary as the UK’s 2nd largest seller of men’s shaving & skincare products, although Nivea were snapping at our heels.

I’m delighted today, 10 years later – that many of the staff who worked with me then, work with me now – including Andy Hill, Jane Greenaway, Simon Watson, Karen Heygate-Brown, Andy Honour to name but five.  Goodness me, they’ve seen a lot.

In 2003, I rightly (or wrongly – depending on your viewpoint – especially if you’re a long suffering shareholder given the cash burn) started what has become a decade of investment & innovation into shaving hardware, in the quest to launch the ‘King of Blades’ – the world’s best razor.  Foolhardy perhaps, given in 2005 Gillette (the biggest, and still the best…) was bought by US company P&G for around $57 billion dollars.  Clearly there was money in razor and blades, and a fearsome competitor too – with over 80% market share world-wide.

However, I was convinced we could disrupt their monopoly, sorry – cosy duopoly – with Schick Wilkinson Sword (bought by another US company called Energizer in 2004 for $930 million dollars) with a razor designed and largely made in the UK called the Azor.

I worked firstly with James Mason, then Andy Honour – talented industrial designers between 2003-8 to launch this razor, in partnership with a Japanese manufacturing company Kai Industries, whom I’d met in 2004 at a tradeshow in Frankfurt.

We launched the Azor 4 to critical acclaim in June 2008 (it got a nice write up in the Daily Mail and other publications) and in the following year, had got around 5% of the market from Gillette & Wilkinson Sword.  However, it wasn’t plain sailing, they weren’t about to give up their monopoly on the market, and we faced fearsome competition on  price and promotion almost from the day we launched.  Although I raised £4m of debt & equity in 2009 (and a further £5m between 2010-11) it was clear however much we marketed our Azor, our spends were always a fraction of what the competition spent.

But, in 2009 I asked my design & innovation team (basically Andy & Andy) to go out and develop for me a truly ‘cutting edge’ razor, taking into account all our learnings of the past 6 years, which must have great patent protection, and amazing comfort and closeness.

The King of Blades.

Whilst they were doing this, I became sadly distracted – firstly on not promoting our shaving ‘software’ business (gels & oils) as aggressively as we had done previously, letting Nivea for Men usurp our number 2 position in 2011) and also locked into a distribution strategy for King of Shaves with the Remington brand in the USA, which although it delivered £4m of sales in 2011-12, did not get the cut-through at retail (only launched at Walgreens), and led us to terminate the agreement for contractual/breach reasons in June 2012 (we’d previously been 10 years in the USA with an office ably managed by Stephanie Eddy, who joined us as a graduate trainee in 2000, leaving 12 years later…)

And of course, we had (and still have) a global recession, which although it hasn’t slowed beard growth, has meant that growth prospects in the UK and abroad have become more difficult to come by.  We have had to promote more and deeper with retailers, and in effect ‘trod water’ whilst my team readied our next generation razor, and other products which will launch in the the near future (not too much detail here I’m afraid, you never know who’s reading).

So, here I am now on April 15th, 2013 – still at the helm of King of Shaves, having got much right, and quite a lot wrong, especially underestimating what it would take for us to succeed at scale against Gillette in the UK – although the consultant who war-gamed with me between 2007-8 said they’d a a ‘challenging competitor’.  Not wrong there.

What we’ve got right though is keeping our brand current and much loved by our fans – the King’s Doms’ – those who like me are now middle aged Dads (but were once idealistic 27 year olds) as well as the younger generation.  We’ve constantly innovated, updated and refined our products, always keeping the emphasis on quality over cost of goods, and – I hope – always being the King of Shaves, never the Knave of Shaves.  We’ve got the whole web thing, including social media, largely right too – I tweet as @KingofShaves and ensure that people know who we are, what we stand for and why we’re worth buying.  I’m also delighted we bought shave.com back in 1995, were the first in ecommerce in 1999 (from a toiletries perspective), have been on twitter since 2007 and Facebook since 2008 (it’s about the conversation in the community – the digital dialogue – no longer the brand broadcast).

What we’ve got wrong is never quite getting the US right (we’ll be back in 2014, in partnership with the US division of our Japanese partner) and also, not evolving our Azor razor quickly enough (it being a patent minefield out there).  The last few years have seen our company run at a loss (as we make investments in R&D and more for the future), but these have been financed via equity, not debt – with strong, supportive partners.  And, with our next generation of razor – it’s taken us 18 months longer than I thought it would to get a razor with a real “WOW” to it – but hey, if it was easy, everyone would be making one.

When I set out with King of Shaves, I didn’t have an ‘exit’ planned as such – as so many do – build and sell within five years, and move on to the next thing.  I’m personally quite the rarity in entrepreneurial / business circles, still the founder, still the CEO, still with my wealth in the business, rather than cashed out.  This has afforded me great opportunities in meeting amazing people, getting great press coverage for what it’s been like running an entrepreneurial business, and seeing the term ‘Entrepreneur’ hit the mainstream, big time – when I started, it was basically just Richard Branson and/or Alan Sugar.  Along the way, our company, it’s products and perhaps the way I’ve run it, has influenced dozens, nay hundreds of people, many of whom have set out on their own personal mission to “create a job, not take a job”  One person I met said I was the “Entrepreneur’s Entrepreneur”. Now, I don’t know about that, but it was nice to see how respected our brand, business was.

Each and every day, when I stand in front of the mirror and enjoy the ‘King’ of Shaves (can’t wait to later this year when I’ll do this wearing Google Glass and using our new #Hyperformance razor) I think of how lucky I am, to be where I am, having done what I’ve done, and thinking about what there is yet to do.

It’s a privilege and a pleasure running King of Shaves, 99% of people I’ve met in the past 20 years have been great to work with, of course there’s the odd 1% who massively disappoint and frustrate you – but hey, that’s life – and at least when you’re your own boss, you can choose what to do, when to do it and with whom.

Although our financial year 2012-13 will be disappointing for me, in terms of sales growth, it will be hugely rewarding in terms of knowing that in 2013-14 we’ll bring to market a product that I believe will be truly worthy of the phrase ‘King of Blades’ and with it’s uniqueness, give us something to shout about in the UK and overseas.  Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the shaving with, and until YOU use it, and rate (or slate) it – I won’t know if the multi-million pound investments I’ve signed off on (with my shareholders sometimes melting down) will work.  But, a brand like King of Shaves must always deliver halo products – as Apple knows, get one product right, and the world’s your oyster.

That’s around 2,100 words now – I’d only set out to write 1,000 or so – but when you get going, it’s difficult to stop.

For those who’ve read this far, and if you’re a fan or user of King of Shaves, I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart – it’s absolutely my DNA – good and bad in the brand – and I hope you like it for better than worse, although many find our shaving oil and Azor razor a little too marmite.

We live in uncertain times, but with uncertainty, comes opportunity (keep an eye on Bitcoin…?) and with creativity, enormous success can be generated.  The late Steve Jobs would say “stay foolish”, I’d add “embrace change as a constant” and always, ALWAYS – be the best YOU can be.

Be a King.

Thank You

Will

Look at the Sainsbury shelves now! It’s a multi-million pound battleground, with the main protagonists (by scale) of Nivea for Men (Beiersdorf), Men Expert (L’Oreal), Gillette (P&G) and Wilkinson Sword (Energizer) being recently joined by Dove Men+Care (Unilever) all topped out by King of Shaves (KoSCo).

So, although we can’t get out the chequebook and write a blank cheque to ensure our latest & greatest products are listed, the fact we sell between 30-50,000 products each month (7 x L’Oreal Men Expert shave for example) keeps us in the hunt.

And with what we have planned in wet shave later this year, a huge ZAG product, even more so.

It’s been a year of high’s (highest ever King of Shaves Co. wholesale brand sales, over £10.2m) and lows (terminating our USA distribution agreement with Spectrum Brands, Inc., James Ellington missing out on an Olympic medal) and everything in-between.  From sponsoring Olympic hopefuls and Extreme 40 #Hyperformance catamarans, to launching our King of Shaves ‘SUB’.  We’ve had people join (and sadly, leave) and have worked hard on ensuring our company, brand is well positioned for:-

“TA DA”

Our TWENTIETH (get out of here…!!!) year in business.  We’re leaving our teenage years, and like most good teenagers, have spent the last three years studying hard in the University of Amazing Shaving to launch a First Class new razor (Which I can’t reveal yet) which does employ very clever stuff to deliver an awesomely awesome King of Shaves…

“Shhhhhh!” I hear my PR company say.

In addition to amazing new, we have a lot planned for 2013, we officially turn 20 on April 13th, and for sure will be planning something great then.  And throughout the year, we’ll be rewarding King of Shaves fans – ‘Loyal Subjects’ – the ‘King’s Doms’ with prizes, treats and surprises.  Make sure you follow me on the twitter to be in the know…!

With a team of just 14, I continue to be amazed that we have over 1.5 million lives daily, carry out astonishing R&D and invention of new, and always ‘embrace change as a constant’ to ensure it never overtakes us.

All of this started around this time, in December 1992 when I started shaving with the first King of Shaves shaving oil.

Just like I still do today.

It’s good some things never change…

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you all.

Best

Will

I don’t want to give the game away, but we have much planned for our brand next year, as we see increasing competition from ‘pretenders to our throne’ – the multi-billion dollar competitors who now inhabit our space (in 1993, it was simply Gillette, us and Colgate Palmolive).

In 2013 we’ll be:

• Completely refreshing our King of Shaves range of products, stylishly and in a premium way (without charging more) but delivering “The World’s Best” by way of high performance (which is why we use the twitter #Hyperformance).
• In Spring (or maybe earlier…) launching @JoinOurKingdom – you can follow ‘me’ on the twitter now, to get early news…
• Launching an amazing ( LIKE AMAZING) new product in 2013 > #Hyperformance.
• Launching an amazing new RANGE of products…
• Building on our global distribution, strategically working with partners world-wide.
• And more…

Which brings me to the USA…

We launched King of Shaves at Target in 2000, and between then & 2011, managed the business via our NYC headquartered company.  In 2010 we signed a distribution agreeement with the Remington division of Spectrum Brands, Inc., which saw us co-brand King of Shaves with Remington in the USA and launch our Azor 5 in Walgreens and other accounts.  For reasons that I am unable to express publicly, this partnership was dissolved in Spring of this year, and from January 1st 2013, it’ll be King of Shaves solo again, doing things in our own way.

This means for much of 2013, there will be a hiatus of supply regarding King of Shaves in the USA, as we strategically decide how to position our successful brand in the USA.  It’s never been easy for us there – I’m not too sure why – as we have had an amazing following, but somehow never ‘quite’ broken through (hence us signing with Remington, to see if that might work).

What I can assure our US fans of is A) a commitment to ensure that by 2014, we’ll have our latest and greatest products that will launch in the UK this coming year, there and B) use the internet and e-commerce, online commerce to keep you supplied.

We will be updating our US Facebook presence in the coming weeks, to ensure we have everything ready for January 1st.  In the meantime, continue to visit here or get in touch with us via shave.com in the UK.

In the meantime, we continue to enjoy superb sales in the UK, despite the best efforts of our competitors to out-promote and out-market us (NEVER) and as the only privately owned global challenger brand left in high performance men’s shaving and skincare, we love the support you give us.  Thank you!

So, here’s looking forward to keeping clean shaven, confident and uber-cool (just like Daniel Craig, another great British smoothstar) and to shaving lives, in the UK and beyond during our (next) 20 years.

And remember, don’t just shave, King of Shaves!

Will @KingofShaves

Extreme Hyperformance! This pic says it all! Along with King of Shaves competition winners, shaving bond holders & Olympic athletes, CEO Will King hosted a fun, action packed weekend at the Extreme Sailing Series Act 5, Cardiff 1-2 September, with all guests not only sailing, but racing too! It’s all about extreme #Hyperformance in a cutting edge world!

For the past week, I’ve been tweeting about #extremeHyperformance and asking you to follow me on twitter.  Today we announced our sponsorship of Team Wales in Act 5 of the Extreme Sailing Series, powering a Hyperformance Extreme 40 catamaran – well worth checking on YouTube or via the Extreme Sailing Series website where you can see these high performance catamarans in action.

Our competition is simple, A) simply follow me @KingofShaves on twitter (or be following already) and B) retweet (RT) the hashtag #extremeHyperformance.

A week on Tuesday (28 August 2012), one lucky follower will be randomly selected (sorry, competition open only to followers based in the UK) and the prize will consist of

- Travel to/from Cardiff & accommodation paid for.
- A sail aboard an Extreme 40 catamaran.
- VIP ‘Access All Areas’ to meet the competitors, Olympican James Ellington, celebrities and more.
- £250 spending money.
- A Wingman SuperFly tee-shirt from the SS13 collection.
- #extremeHyperformance King of Shaves event tee & cap.
- Products from the King of Shaves range.

And a whole lot of fun, fun that money can’t buy.

So, you have to be in it to win it, it’s as easy as A) following me @KingofShaves on twitter and B) retweeting #extremeHyperformance!

Come, fly (a hull) with me!

Will King
Founder, CEO.

After the Olympics 2012 Closing Ceremony, James bumped into Mo, and got a great photo. Love the lightbulb hat, Mo!

It was an amazing 15 days where we exceeded expectation!  And this is my FAVE pic from the Games, of James Ellington & Mo Farah doing the King of Shaves “Shwoosh Move” after the closing ceremony.  I take my hat off to Mo!

I’ve also been involved with the Games in a more direct way, through King of Shaves’ sponsorship of Team GB athlete James Ellington, we stepped in earlier this year to help him fund his training to get him to the Games, and help him realise potential.

No one was more gutted than me to see his dreams of competing in the 200m men’s semi-finals (and finals) evaporate yesterday, when in his heat, he ran the slowest he’s ran all year, and was eliminated.  Following him featuring in the documentary ‘Personal Best’ (out on DVD now) which followed him from 2007-11 I’m sure he, and his many fans, expected him to qualify for the semi’s.  Sadly he didn’t.  And I know right now he’ll be down.

But I’m not.  The fact he even was able to RUN in our home Olympics saw him overcome huge adversity.  The way he went about it, and on elimination, the way he responded (thinking he’d let everyone down) is the cocktail of life – a mixture of huge highs, and huge lows.  But, people like James will always attract success, and support – even if he feels he’s failed.  To truly succeed, you need to truly fail first – only then, you’ll understand what success looks like, and go out and get it.

Late last night I was delighted to receive the words below (unsolicited) from Ashley Turner, who wanted to point out that “Whether You Win or Lose, It’s The Taking Part That Counts” .  It made me smile, I sent it to James and Ashley has given me permission to publish it – see below.

>>>>>>

Sponsorship With Substance

Sponsorship plays an integral part in making the Olympic Games what they are; ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’.  The Olympics need sponsorship equally as much as the sponsors need the Olympics. The Olympics gain vital funding and the sponsors gain exclusivity as the official soft drink, credit card or even razor of the games, whilst the brand is beamed to billions of people worldwide.

But is there an ounce of substance to these sponsorship deals? What relevance does a fast food chain have to the Olympic Games?

Well to answer both questions; no and very little.

So in truth the sponsorships are based upon financial gain and brand power, with very little thought for relevance, substance, credibility and social responsibility. And with 22 Gold Medal for Team GB already, it’s fair to say you probably will never be more than an advert away from seeing a Gold medallist influencing what toothpaste we purchase or what razor we shave with. To the athletes I say good luck to them. They have achieved fantastic success in sports which only get mainstream attention during the Olympic Games and sports which pay very little in comparison to footballers, golfers and tennis players. If they can get a big cheque from a market leading company for 30 seconds of terrible acting, then good for them.

A lot has been spoken about legacy in regards to London 2012 and with Team Gb’s excellent performance and the spectacle we have witnessed; I think the legacy is safely secured. But what legacy is created by these companies throwing millions of pounds at the games in an attempt to gain further market share in markets that are already globalised?

Thankfully there is one sponsorship deal I have witnessed which does have substance and social responsibility. The partnership of James Ellington and King of Shaves. Today James Ellington bowed out of the Olympics after just 21 seconds on track. The 200m sprinter finished outside the top 3 places in his heat which was necessary to reach the semi-finals. The Olympics have such fine margins between complete euphoria and agonising heartbreak and no finer margin than the 1 second which eliminated Ellington.
But whilst the front and back pages of national newspapers will be graced with Gold medal winning GB athletes, James Ellington’s story goes far beyond his contrasting exit.

It may sound cliché but for Ellington to be part of team GB and compete at his home games, really is a dream come true. The prospect was nothing more than a pipe dream not that long ago. The 200m sprinter suffered injury which resulted in him missing out on vital funding and seriously jeopardised his chances of reaching the games.

However, Ellington stayed focused and once fit recorded a 200m time which cemented his place in Team GB. Funding was still an issue though and Ellington put himself on eBay in a last ditch attempt to reach the games. The ups and downs kept coming as he believed he had secured funding only to find out the bid was a hoax and he was back to square one. Step up Will King (Founder of King of Shaves) and allow Ellington to realise his dream. Will provided James with funding and in exchange Ellington became the clean shaven face of King Of Shaves.

Having only spent 21 seconds on the track, is it fair to say Will King’s backing of Ellington was a mistake both financially and for the brand?

Yes, that’s if you believe the sole purpose of sponsorship is for financial gain and an opportunity to parade your athlete with your product in hand. However Will King does not think like this. Sponsoring James was never for financial gain, it was part of his ‘Wingman Project’ which has already seen him invest in young, talented entrepreneurs and hopefully many more athletes and entrepreneurs to come. Will King invests in people and by doing so with Ellington he has added to his portfolio which will undoubtedly continue to grow.

In a time when sports funding in state schools have been cut, when getting a break is harder due to current economics, Will King has propelled King Of Shaves as a social responsible organisation that gives people a chance to fulfil their ambition.
Will King will be disappointed for James, but he won’t regret backing him for one minute and when the disappointment fades, the pride will beam.

If you ask Will King, I’m sure he will say backing James Ellington is much more satisfying than bunging an Olympic Gold medallist a seven figure sum from an endless pot of money to witness a transparent smile with razor in hand.
When asked how he contributed to London 2012 he can proudly say he helped someone live their dream. It’s an honest partnership which oozes substance and credibility.

And whilst Ellington may be feeling down at the minute, he can tell his children how he was an Olympian and that title will never leave his side.

Now that is legacy.

Ash Turner

<<<<<<

Thanks Ash!  Turning to the headline of the blog, “It’s the Participation, Stupid” – well – I’m not just talking about the athletes’ participation in the Games.  I’m talking about the participation of the ENTIRE COUNTRY in the Games.  Bill Clinton famously coined “It’s the Economy, Stupid” in this successful bid to become President of the USA – focusing people on what mattered to them – money, jobs & security.  To secure a future legacy of the Olympic Games, we simply need to build on the PARTICIPATION and the future LEGACY of the British Public in “The Greatest Show On Earth”.  Already, we know that nearly all tickets to the Paralympics have sold out, because people want to take PART in the event, irrespective of the event they’re watching.  Indeed, Channel 4 are building up the Olympics as the trailer to the main event, the Paralympics!

Going forwards, in Stratford, East London we now have A) an amazing, green, eco-friendly and quite frankly cool, integrated sporting complex – surely the Headquarters of the UK Centre For Global Sporting Excellence.  B) we have Stratford East – the mega shopping centre, which will attract shoppers for many years to come.  And finally, C) we have the Media Centre – which (I believe) can be refitted to build on ‘Silicon Roundabout – Tech City’ to harbour future entrepreneurial startups and more, dovetailing them with sport and commerce.

Right now, everyone either wants to be A) a Gold winning athlete and/or B) a successful Entrepreneur.  Being an Entrepreneur is the new ‘royalty’ in terms of what you do in your working life.

Now we need to see participation in this.  A great coaching infrastructure for future sporting success (Rio 2016 – almost certainly one of the coolest places to host an Olympics, with better weather for sure ;0  And b, a business support infrastructure – via alternative investment AND business helpers/mentors (hence my Wingman project – as I like the Wingman descriptor way better than Mentor) to ensure our future start-ups have a gold medal chance on the world’s commercial stage.

So, UK Government – build on “The Goodwill of the Games” and put in place a 10-20 year infrastructure and investment strategy around sports & entrepreneurs, get the participation of world class athletes and entrepreneneurs and remember:

“Impossible IS Nothing.  Just DO IT.”

Will King

I know he’ll do his darndest to run his personal best and qualify for the semifinals, and hopefully the finals – we’re using the twitter hashtag #TeamJELL to support him (making shaving gel, as we do) and we hope you will to.

Injured.  eBay.  Hoaxed.  Backed.  Competing.  Next?  “Smooth Runnings, James – Hyperformance Time!”

To help drive awareness of our King of Shaves SUB launch I tweeted out to my followers on King of Shaves, saying that the first 250 to follow would be able to enter a little competition involving winning a week at my villa in Grenada, for the video with the most views uploaded in response to our “Join our Sub” video you can see on our website.  An email was sent to these followers, laying out T’s & C’s.

I was delighted with the entries received, and watched the views grow.  However, I was tweeted by a fan of King of Shaves after the comp went live, asking if he could join in.  The more the merrier I thought…  However, when the competition closed, it turned out that the video from the “late entry” had got the most views.  Oh dear.

So, I had two winners – an official winner and an unofficial winner.  And BOTh will get a week at Kingfisher!

They are (TA DAA)

Officially: Robert Lofthouse @MRLOFT with this video

Unofficially: Ben Somerset How @CreativeBrief with his video

Congratulations both, Robert, Ben – I will be in touch with you regarding your week’s stay at my villa shortly.

A special call out (and set of King of Shaves products) also to Nyk Edinger aka @Ghostoth with his video - “unusual!”

For the other 250 followers of our @KingofShavesSUB account (I do know who you all are) we will be sending you out a special Gold and Black King of Shaves Azor 4 & 4 cartridges.  I have most of your emails, and will be in touch over the coming days.

Phew.

King of Shaves SUB is going (and growing) from strength to strength, and over the next few weeks, we’ll be updating the site.

On a side note, James Ellington, our GB Athlete who’s aiming to compete in the upcoming Olympics ran an Olympic A class time of 20.55 in the 200m last weekend in Geneva.  You can follow and support him on twitter here @jellington100m

Best

Will King

In short, KingofShavesSUB.com is a modern, quick and easy way for us to connect with our customers, in the UK, EU & USA/Canada.  Unlike DSC, who sell generic private label razors, using a 1970′s 2 blade razor as a ‘loss leader’ was not an option for us, as we design, manufacture & sell our own patented & patent pending products.  So, we chose to price our Azor 4 extremely attractively – £3 per month, Azor handle free in the first month, and add £1 for our latest Azor 5 (the handle of which is way heavier and more expensive to manufacture).  We chose to ship 3 cartridges per month (as opposed to 4) feeling that as our cartridges last longer, it seemed silly ‘forcing’ people to change cartridges just because they knew they’d have another shipment coming (reason to cancel).  Finally, we’ve introduced our latest Azor S for Women, which is currently only available online at our Sub.

Although our launch was covered by the Daily Mirror, and by trade magazines, Marketing Week & Marketing, we had a ‘mega’ article lined up, which – I hate to say it – was spiked, due to what I’ll call “intensive lobbying” by one of our nervous competitors (some of whom are calling out how long their cartridges last – which I know for a fact doesn’t stand up to consumer feedback).  So, some things worked out, some things didn’t.  But, the fact they were lobbying, means they’re nervous.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be adding more products to the site – we’ve had numerous requests for our shaving oils – which we should be able to ship easily through the post – sending our AlphaGels is more problematic, due to their weight, bulk & cost.  But, of course these are available from retailers, or our conventional online store.

Right now, our ‘Join our Sub’ video has had a fraction of the views of Dollar Shave – we chose not to use casual blasphemy to promote it (did include the obligatory social media bear though) but a few of our fans have posted their own in response, and I have my own ideas about viralising our offering, but “all in good time”.

Whilst that’s been going on, James Ellington – the Olympic Athlete we ‘shaved’ from eBay has returned from training in the USA, and is now in the build up to the qualification trials for the games.  He’s running well, is quietly confident, and has been picking up some great coverage.  Right now, all James needs to do is concentrate on an objective he’s been aiming for all his life, and I’m delighted we’ve been able to give him a shot at the ‘Run of a Lifetime’.

Watch this space for details of our advertising campaign that will break in the run up to London 2012, and of course – more about what we’re up to at King of Shaves as we prepare (as Marketing Week put it) to launch “the iPhone of razors”.

Have a great bank holiday, one and all.  Wrap up!

Thanks for clicking through via my 12pm twitter announcement – I must say, this whole social media thing is really rather good, when you’re planning on launching something ‘at scale’ and you can get people involved pre-launch! Firstly, if you haven’t already, please sign up to our holding page for our ‘Club’ here (this is not the site itself – it’s just a place where we are collating email addresses, to add to our 250,000 we have for our conventional King of Shaves Direct e-commerce site.

“The King needs YOU!”

In the past, companies’ like ours would launch something like this following “focus groups”, “modelling” – insight from “transactional behavioural analysts”. And all that BS. However, the world moves fast these days – and I want to ensure that what we launch is simply “Prestige” – a slang term that young kids are currently using for stuff that is awesome, according to my son!

If you’re following @KingofShavesSUB I have a few requests for you – and of course, helping us out will mean we help you out – not just in terms of site UX (or user experience) but also with the opportunity to A) get a prize money can’t buy and B) integrate closer into how we go about things at King of Shaves.

Firstly, we’d LOVE you to comment and give insight into our proposed “Join our Sub” website – and where possible act on your insight pre-launch. Please would you click here and then select ‘Message for Will King’ which will find me directly. Use #JoinOurSub in the message body copy please. In the next few days, I’ll then be in touch with a secret URL which will allow you to interact with the v1.0 version of our site – and then email me your thoughts so I can pass them on to the development team. We intend to ensure the site really is extremely simple to use, so your feedback in advance (rather than us second guessing) is critical. Thank You.

Secondly, later this week we’ll be shooting a little “something” to launch our site with in the next few weeks. Just prior to our site going live, I’ll be giving YOU the chance to shoot your own version (don’t worry, you’ll need little more than a smartphone to do it), which we’ll upload onto our YouTube channel (it’s only 30s long) and to then be voted on. The best (ie most views) will then win a WEEK for 4 people, all expenses paid (including flights) to stay at KINGFISHER, my villa in Grenada, West Indies later this year! There are a few t’s and c’s around this (mainly to do with availability) – but I will handle this directly in due course. Live like a King, in the Sun – for a week – Yay!

Finally, I’d really like to get a little bit of a buzz going around the launch of our ‘Sub’ in advance – so, if you are able to spread the word of mouse when possible out to your friends, and family, I’d appreciate that. We’re simply aiming to put the “simple” & “save” back into “shaving” so we can make life a little bit easier for you in these tough times. As you’ll know, we don’t have multi-million pound brand ambassadors on our books (we are delighted to be supporting Olympic sprint hopeful, James Ellington though) so the more help we can get from the “King’s Doms” (fans) the better! It’ be great to top 1,000 followers pre-launch!

I look forward to your email hitting my inbox! Thanks for “joining our sub” – be in touch soon!

Will King

PS – please remember to use #JoinOurSub in the body copy – thanks!

Commenting on the deal, Ellington said: “Going on eBay gave me amazing exposure but unfortunately the winning bidder wasn’t genuine. Thankfully Will King and King of Shaves stepped in and ‘shaved’ my life…!”

He added: “I couldn’t be happier that the deal has been sorted – and with a brand I really like, I already use their products! Now I can focus on winning a medal for Great Britain in the 2012 Olympics.”

Will King, Founder and CEO of King of Shaves said: “We backed Kristan Bromley and Shelley Rudman in the 2006 Winter Olympics at Torino in Bob Skeleton when they were in dire need of funding; Shelley famously slid to a superb Silver. So when I heard James was struggling to raise funds and go for Gold, I was delighted to get King of Shaves involved as part of our forthcoming ‘Wingman’ Project – supporting people and businesses with winning potential. We have more announcements coming.”

Ellington added: “I personally want to thank all of the people who emailed, tweeted and wrote to me. I’ve been so touched by all of your messages of support and even donations to my cause. Whatever I manage to achieve at London 2012, I’m doing it for you.”

This sponsorship deal and others to be announced over the coming months, builds on King of Shaves’ Young Blades athletes initiative that ran between 2004 and 2010. In 2007, King of Shaves sponsored James Sheppard in Powerboat P1, he went on to become World Champion in that year. In 2010 the company also supported Jon Beeby who walked across the USA in 80 days to raise funds for charity.

To discuss interview opportunities with James, please contact Rania Johnson or Rachel Branigan at MacLaurin Media on 020 8237 4600. For further information about James or for images contact Henry Warrington at Third City. More details about James Ellington can be found at www.jamesellington.net. The website and James’ PR support is supplied on a pro bono basis.

Hosted by journalist and commedian James Mullinger, you can watch the show from 5th November on Saturdays, 6pm on Dmax (Sky 144 and Virgin 172) and repeated on Wednesdays at 8pm.

You can view the trailer below, or visit moviekingdom.tv to see clips of the reviews and interviews as they become available throughout the series!

If YOU’D like to be considered, all I need from you is for you to email me via the ‘Contact Us’ part of our King of Shaves website (there is a ‘contact Will King’ field here), with the all important “Why?” I’m aiming to host a table of 12, and alongside me, will be 3-4 of my team.

I will be tweeting out about the event shortly on twitter, with the #KOSforTHT – please use this reference if you contact me.

Details on the Terence Higgins Trust – the HIV & sexual health charity for life are here. Stephen Fry (a huge King of Shaves shaving oil fan) is the Patron.

As you may know, banks ain’t lending much dough these days. And this is hurting SME’s (Small Medium Enterprises). Back in June 2009 we debuted our innovative Shaving Bond paying 6% interest over 3 years plus free product. Many companies, including John Lewis, Caxton FX, Hotel Chocolat, Ecotricity have now followed – and this type of mini-bond finance raising, which connects customers with companies, as well as raising money (to NOT be spent on private jets, exotic holidays or dubious pursuits) is gaining credibility & momentum. This was OUR idea. You should all be very proud we’ve pioneered this. Scan of article attached, Jax has FT.King of Shaves Shaving Bond was the First.

The 127 Azor reviews, averaging 4.2/5 are here. The 34 AlphaGel reviews, averaging 4.8/5 are here.

And the best bit for hard hit US consumers is that a pack of 6 Azor 5 EnduriumNano replacement cartridges is just $11.99 (or less) versus expensive Gillette Fusion ProGlide replacement cartridges, at $22+

Shave AND Save with King of Shaves | Remington.

Honestly. Seriously. King of Shaves IS the King of Shaves in the USA, and with our roll-out into stores across the USA coming in the Fall, we’re looking forward to shaving America better, forever with King of Shaves in partnership with Remington.

The King of Shaves USA Facebook fanpage is here if you wish to ‘Like’ us in America!

Look out for more King of Shaves #ShaveTheWorld news soon – as we gear up to launch King of Shaves Azor 5 & AlphaGel in partnership with Remington across the USA.

Awaking, I was delighted to read coverage in The Sunday Telegraph on not just our recent deal with Kai Industries Co. Ltd. of Japan, our technology partner (Kai is a £700m revenues company headquartered in Tokyo) but also a nice write up on our stylish, brand new Precision Grooming range developed in partnership with the Remington division of US $3Bn consumer products company, Spectrum brands.

This is the first time we’ve taken ‘The King’ into the arena of men’s hairstyling & grooming, and we launched the range with Argos earlier this month. It’s available in over 700 stores, and will bring King of Shaves to a wider audience. Of course, we have more planned – both in this area, and in our core wet shave arena in terms of NPD – indeed, one person tweeted today that he saw King of Shaves “as the dyson of shaving” which pleased me greatly!

Before I flew to the USA, my Dad chastised me gently for not updating my blog more frequently – I tend to twitter and post on facebook, both of which he doesn’t particularly engage with. So I hope readers (and Dad!) enjoy reading this latest blog post.

It’s an exciting time for us, having entered the hyper competitive wet shave market with our King of Shaves Azor 4 in June 2008, and more recently launching our Azor 5 Sensitive in the UK, and shortly in the USA (yes, King of Shaves AlphaGels and Azor will be available much more widely in the USA in the Fall, as announced by Dave Lumley the CEO of Spectrum Brands Inc. (SBI) in their recent Q3 Earnings Call.

The King of Shaves Company continues to attract much interest from a wide variety of parties, looking to work with us on expanding our global reach – after all – in high performance system wet shave (an intensely challenging category, with high barriers to entry (patents) and potentially enormous commercial profitability (Gillette was bought for US$57Bn by P&G in 2005) I’m excited that King of Shaves is the only other high performance brand in this space, other than Gillette & Schick Wilkinson Sword – that’s right – just THREE companies, and ‘The British Are Coming’!

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll try to update my blog here, and my Brand Royalty blog more frequently – Dad (and Penny) if I don’t, keep on at me.

King of Shaves. The Future of Shaving! Come, join our Kingdom!

Honours even, methinks.

——-

During the week beginning 13th June 2011, I was allowed to partake in a week of work experience at ‘The King of Shaves Company’.

I was warmly welcomed by the well mannered and lovely staff base that I would be working alongside for the week and company CEO; Will King.

I was able to experience all aspects of the running and maintaining of a product-based business which included IT and communications, sales and marketing, operations, finance and design.

I have a particular interest in design and engineering along with an interest in business and entrepreneurship and so King of Shaves was an ideal place to explore these interests and gauge whether I’d like to take them further in any respect. Those that I had the pleasure to work with were hugely helpful and answered all my questions and queries as to what their field of work entails.

I then spent a day with starting entrepreneur Stu Jolley; founder of ‘Wingman’. This was an invaluable experience as it allowed me to see where a company similar to that of ‘King of Shaves’ starts out on what is sure to be its road to success.

If I had to pick one lesson out of this week it would be to enjoy oneself in everything you do whether it be work or play. Something is only worth doing if you want to do it and you enjoy doing it. As James Howell would say; “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”!

—
Cameron – it was a pleasure having you with us, and delighted you enjoyed yourself! Spread the word re King of Shaves, Kings up in Scotland – important: Enjoy!

Earlier this year, we met up, and realised that with Stu’s Wingman brand, he genuinely had a fantastic opportunity to create a substantial brand, not just in the hyper-competitive world of men’s grooming, but in many other areas too. I was so impressed with his achievements – they reminded me acutely of what I’d gone through with King of Shaves in the the early 1990′s – that I was able to secure a 24% investment in Wingman Products Ltd., Stu’s company.

Over the past few months, I’ve been acting as Wingman’s Wingman, as we evolve the range into a number of different areas, with not just a national outlook, but an international outlook.

I’m delighted to be Stu- Maverick’s – Wingman, and hope that all I and my team have learned in the past 18 years can position his brand on the runway, get the afterburners lit and send his sales & brand soaring into the stratosphere. Stu’s feet are firmly on the ground, but his face is looking into outer space.

Congratulations Stu. You’re cleared for Take Off!

To recap, in June 2008 we launched our Azor razor in the UK to a great response – both from the shaving public, and from the press. The Azor, which shipped with 3 replacement Endurium Nano cartridges is just £4.99 (£5.10 now that VAT is at 20%) – which compares extremely favourably with the competition – both on the actual purchase cost, and the all important cost of replacing cartridges. Our launch mantra was “shave closer, longer, for less” – and this kicked off a HUGE defensive response by our primary global competitors, Gillette & Schick (Wilkinson Sword). Here are some headlines:

- Azor was the 3rd best selling system razor handle in the UK by volume in 2010, helping grow the market to over 12m handles sold at £50m+ value in the 52 weeks to 26 December 2010.

- In 2007, there were less than 50 “price promotions” (ie save £1, save 1/3) run by the two competitors. In 2008 this increased to nearly 200, and in 2009, to nearly 250 – and it has kept at this level ever since! In Autum 2010, Wilkinson Sword announced its Hydro razor (5 blades) with a rumoured£20m marketing spend, and in January 2011, Gillette announced its Fusion ProGlide, with a marketing spend rumoured to be double that of Wilkinson Sword!

- Azor cartridges conversion ratio (people repeat buying cartridges) were in line with other system platforms, at above 25%.

- Since launching the original Azor, we’ve evolved the handle to improve the ergonomics and cartridge eject mechanism, launched the Azor S (sensitive skin version), the Azor M (the alloy handle version) and in January 2011, launched the Azor 5 – our 5 blade, ‘Endurium Nano’ system razor optimised for sensitive skin, to compete with the competition’s 5 blade offers, which has enjoyed remarkable sales in the last few weeks.

Although trading has for sure been tough in the UK, due to the depressed economic environment and the huge competition in our sector, sales of our core shaving software products have remained strong (selling 20-30,000 per week) and our core hardware products have developed a strong niche (selling 5-14,000 handles/week plus 26-35,000 cartridges per week).

Our latest SuperGels are now available in larger Boots and larger Tesco stores, our Azor 5 is available in Asda, Tesco & 1,200 Boots stores, along with our Kings range in over 600 Boots stores. Weekly sales for the week to Sunday 22nd May showed we sold over 34,000 AlphaGels & SuperGels.

For people with a strategic interest in King of Shaves, the company – following the £3.8m investment (via an equity & convertible bond investment) into Knowledge & Merchandising Inc., Ltd. (KMI – the parent company of King of Shaves prior to the demerger on June 1st 2009) the company raised a further £600,000+ via the ‘Shaving Bond’ offer (which matures in July 2012) and subsequently an investment of £1.5m from Kai Industries Co., Ltd. of Japan (our technology partner) totalling c£5.9m. Over the past 36 months, these funds have been utilised to ensure the King of Shaves brand has had the marketing spend to defend its space in the competitive UK market, and invest in all important IP (patents, trademarks, innovation) required for the brand to grow from the foundations established following the demerger from KMI. In addition, the distribution agreement signed with US company Spectrum Brands, Inc. (owners of Remington, the electric shave brand) has allowed the company to concentrate on substantial geographic expansion from mid/late 2011 in key North American, Latin American and other select markets.

The King of Shaves Company Ltd. accounts for the 17 month period ending May 31 2010 therefore reflect the stance taken by me (as CEO) and my Board of Directors to over-invest in UK marketing and all important IP protection as the company’s sales increase in future years. Headlines were as follows:

- Turnover: £11.767m
- Of which £10.342m was UK, £1.334m was International.
- Gross profit: £5.879m
- Administrative expenses inc. IP, trade & consumer marketing: £8.312m
- Profit (Loss) for the period: (£2.758m)

- Current staff number: 17.

Whilst the company has made a loss (as expected, and projected by the management) for the period, it has the strong support and full backing of key and strategic shareholders, including Douglas King (my brother & co-founder of Aisling Analytics PTE, a leading commodities Hedge Fund) and Kai Industries Co., Ltd. of Japan (whose President & CEO sits on the main King of Shaves Holding Company Board of Directors). Indeed, to allow the company to continue to expand its IP portfolio and sphere of international operations, continuing investment may be sought (and sanctioned) to allow the King of Shaves brand the scope to develop in its fullest capacity.

Included in administrative expenses of course are items such as IP (Intellectual Property, product innovation & development and substantial UK marketing investments – which I chose to run at up to 40% of sales for a 2 year period to ensure both our hardware & software businesses achieved market relevance in an increasingly competitive, price reduction driven market).

As we look towards closing the 12 month trading period ending 31st May 2011, the company is projected to make a further trading loss, and as FY 2011/12 develops, via substantially increased (confirmed) international sales towards a trading profit by 31st May 2012 and thereafter.

The King of Shaves Company, and brand is in a pretty unique space. With two global competitors enjoying sales in the billions of dollars, it is clear that being the challenger brand is not an easy space to occupy. However, the scope and potential for future, profitable growth is huge, and I’m delighted to continue to be CEO of the company I founded 18 years ago, with a single shaving oil product, and first year sales of £300.

Interesting things are happening right now… Check out my next blog post!

On Sunday, we uploaded our parody of The King’s Speech onto YouTube, which has gone down a storm world-wide, becoming the 4th most ret-weeted/shared link on Sunday night in the USA, according to zocial.tv, and which now has over 6,000+ views and has been written up by a number of influential blog sites as ‘The’ way to do social media ‘smarketing‘ as I call it.

On Monday, less than 24 hours later – and in advance of Steve Jobs’ debuting Apples new iPad2, I launched our new King of Shaves iPhone app to the 150+ audience at smartaLIVE – a group of upcoming entrepreneurs, knowledge catalysts and forward thinkers. It’s a very KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) free app, that allows you to 1) Get a free King of Shaves Azor 4 XP razor, 2) Order our Azor Endurium cartridges at a significant discount to the UK RRP, and get them delivered to your door (over £30 can be saved when compared to ordering the equivalent number of Gillette ProGlide cartridges) and 3) It connects you into our Kingdom of Social Media, via links to our Facebook fanpage, our YouTube twitter account and my Twitter feed. It’s already picking up very nice reviews indeed!

Today, our new Azor 5 debuted in-store in Tesco (2 weeks early – they are very quick off the mark) along with our latest in shaving software, the SuperGel – more details on this coming soon. All in all, a most excellent week – despite Gillette spending squillions on ‘tugging and pulling’ people towards the hyper-expensive Fusion ProGlide, our sales are standing up well, and have grown over the past few weeks.

I’m off for a few days R&R next week, back on the UK Shave Grid w/c 14 March, but will be ‘tweetdecking’ off a ‘yacht deck’ next week, as I continue to plan out the continuing globalisation of King of Shaves.

Big respect to our partners in the USA too, Spectrum Brands (Remington) – they’ve had some most excellent news this week with regard to our King of Shaves launch there…

It was also, an absolutely perfect, once in a lifetime opportunity, for me (given my name), my brand (King of Shaves), and the challenges we face (going to war against G-G-G…) to make a one-off parody that would debut globally via the social media magic that is Twitter, and hosted for a world-wide audience on YouTube.

I took my son Cameron to see the film on the evening before we were due to shoot our version, and he – like I – loved it. As I told him, “It was WAY better than Fred – The Movie, Cam!”

And I had to make sure, in my own way, our Will King’s Speech spoof/parody version was, the very best it could be. It was shot in just under 5 hours, on the afternoon of Thursday 24th February, and came out of post-production less than 24 hours later. Creative Director was Tiger Savage of the Tiger’s Eye Agency (her first ad for her own shop). It was directed by Stuart Gillies, produced by Mathew Alden and edited by Nick Saunders at The Chop House.

We shot three versions. The one you’ll see on YouTube here another – which ends without me saying “Cut” and, a final one – a Director’s Cut if you like – that runs for 6 minutes, and is the full blown version, where I (forgive me) rewrote the famous speech, introducing my favourite ‘enemy’ Wilkinette, declaring war on “the bondage of over-priced razor blades” – one of my favourite subjects – and talking about being strong in resolve, “not being tugged one way, pulled in the other”. Depending on the the interest in the parody, I may upload this in the future.

It’s always difficult to know how a parody/spoof advert like this will go down with the intended global audience. I hope those who are fans of King of Shaves enjoy it, and those who are yet to know our brand, find my own “Will King’s Speech” engaging enough to discover more about our mission to shave the world better, forever (and avoid being tugged and pulled into buying ever increasingly expensive razor blade cartridges).

Will it win any viral Oscars? Well, the jury for sure will be out on that for a while. But, I sincerely hope The Kings Speech sweeps the board at the Academy Awards, even though it’s up against another film favourite of mine, The Social Network.

So, good luck to Colin Firth and the cast of The King’s Speech.

“God Shave The King”

PS | This is a spoof/parody of The King’s Film speech, and is no way intended to offend anyone who suffers from a stammer. Help on stammering can be found here.
PPS | No Corgi’s were harmed in the making of the film.
P-P-P-S | Eat your heart out, B-B-B-D-D-O.

Apart from the two days, many years ago now, when A) I shaved with oil and “it worked” and B) changed the name of Sunrise to King of Shaves, today was absolutely the most important day in King of Shaves history.

Why? I’ll hear you clamour. What happened? Well, only one other person was there to record what happened, he knows who he is, and in his inimitable way, knows how to react to my “passionate enthusiasm”. But, he also knows that what he saw today, means that – if we get it right – King of Shaves has the brightest, most fabulous future ahead of it.

It was the ‘moment’ when, perhaps Steve Jobs said to someone “Look, we’ve been making pastel coloured computers for designers for too long now – Apple’s a great, zag brand – how about we mix music up with mobile phones on a razor & blade business model and see what happens…?”

Um, Apple’s now the USA’s most valuable business (or #2).

It was the ‘moment’ when, perhaps Mark Zuckerberg said to himself “Look, we’re using this TheFacebook website to rate female hotness. But, how about we make it something bigger than that, and connect people globally…?” 500m users and a valuation of US$50Bn later, well – that KISS statement makes sense.

Facebook has the highest valuation of any pure dotcom business ever.

Was my ‘moment’ quite as big as these. To be frank, no! But, in its way – in its ramifications for hundreds of millions of men and women world-wide, absolutely, YES! Why? Well, you’ll have to wait and see – hence the title of this blog – King of Shaves. Brand Royalty? But, for those of you who’ve heard me talk, or met me – you’ll know a number of things:

- Product is King.

- KISS.

- I’m passionate & persistent.

- As being CEO of King of Shaves is like playing an addictive game on the PS3or XBox – Call of Duty – Assassins Creed – well, it’s addictive and fun, and well – you know – I want to win it.

- Finally I’ve got the consumer both in my heart, and in my mind. I want to shave people closer, for longer, for less – on a global basis – and change the face of shaving (from essentially a monopoly – sorry – duopoly) – for better, forever.

Will I, will we succeed? As I’ve blogged before, “Where there’s a Will (and team) there’s a Way!”

15.15.16.2.11 I will remember those digits for the rest of my life.

Don’t just shave. King of Shaves!

Let me name the ways!

The Azor 5 handle design & hinge has been re-engineered to make it much softer on men’s (often sensitive skin). This has been achieved through changing the ‘shore’ of our patented Bendology Technology and other clever techy stuff. Our Azor is unique in that we are able to do this, all other system razors have one ‘default’ setting so to speak. I’m very proud of this. We’ve also made it out of a funky metallic blue polyastomer, with our latest weighted metal handle with creases for improved shave dexterity & ease of use. Finally, the handle now has an elegant travel tray, that we love the aesthetic of. For storage, it is placed ‘face down’, or if you want to show it off on your bathroom shelf, ‘face up’!

BUT there’s MUCH more…!

No gorgeous fast car is complete without a fantastic engine, and with our latest cartridge, we’ve taken shaving to a whole new level of comfort and closeness. Our Azor 5 cartridge features:

5 thinner, finer blades – which basically mean you get a closer, more comfortable and forgiving shave.

Each blade is coated in what we call EnduriumNano – it’s a thinner coating than our previous Endurium one (as used on on our 4 blade Azor cartridges) and helps to make our super sharp, hard steel blades last longer.

Finally, and this is the Best Bit, is the price. Unlike our pricey Fusion ProGlide competitor, which charges between between £15-20 for 6 replacement cartridges (people – this is where the REAL expense is), we’re launching our Azor 5 cartridges for a limited time at just £6.99 for 6 cartridges in all retailers. Asda are our launch retailer, with Azor 5 then rolling into Waitrose, Sainsbury, Tesco & Boots over the next couple of months.

So, now you can truly SHAVE LIKE A KING without paying a King’s Ransom. You can buy the latest in sleek, innovative British design. You can save money into the bargain. If you have sensitive skin (53% of men apparently have) then your face, as well as your finances will love you for it.

Introducing King of Shaves Azor 5. The Future of Shaving. Join our Kingdom!

(ps – sorry for the pic being on its side. I can’t seem to rotate it through 90 degrees)
(pps – where i am its 2am in the morning, bit (!) jet lagged hence working.

You don’t have to pay a huge amount per cartridge to get a close comfortable shave – our launch of our Azor proved that two & a half years ago, and I’m delighted with the price of our latest Azor 5 cartridge (thin blade, EnduriumNano – read long lasting – coated). It’s just £6.99 for 6, compared with Gillette Fusion ProGlide at £16.99 for 6, and a WHOPPING £19.99 for 6 if you’re (mad) enough to buy their Fusion ProGlide Power variant.

The Azor 5 launches at Asda on 25th January 2011, before hitting other UK retailers over the next few months, and our latest software, King of Shaves SuperGels will also go on sale soon.

Then, its a big push in the USA throughout 2011 as we already to look towards 2012 and what we’re planning then.

Best wishes,

Will

The Azor 5 builds on the excellent performance of our original Azor, launched in June 2008, which we’ve now sold over 2m handles & 10m Azor Endurium cartridges. Azor 5 SENSITIVE will launch in the UK in early 2011, and will feature a stylish travel tray, improved Bendology Technology hinge, optimised for sensitive skin and a 5 blade shaving surface Endurium Nano cartridge with thinner blades and a patented ‘Nano’ coating for excellent shave comfort and enhanced glide.

Azor 5 will debut in UK retailers in early 2011, and cartridges will cost approximately half the price of the Gillette Fusion ProGlide razor, continuing King of Shaves’ commitment to deliver ‘The King of Shaves Without The Cartridge Ransom.

More details on the launch will be made available via #SHWARM and at King of Shaves Facebook Fanpage.

More news in the New Year on our #smarketing launch campaign & even MORE new news…! Watch this space, but in the meantime, wishing you a very Happy Christmas & a Super Smooth New Year

Yesterday’s announcement of the partnership between King of Shaves and Remington to market launch the King of Shaves brand into the core US market I hope will be welcomed by consumers and retailers alike. For too long, the hugely profitable wet shaving market (razors, replacement blades and shaving preparations) has looked like a monopoly/cosy duopoly to me, where P&G’s Gillette have enjoyed supreme market dominance, selling the most product, at hugely inflated prices to consumers, whilst their ‘competition’ – Schick – settle for a distant second place. Gillette have a market share of nigh on 80% in the US market, Schick a distant 10% and, as for us – as I write this in Phoenix, Arizona – zero.

With the exception of our King of Shaves Azor system razor launch in the UK in June 2008, the market dynamics have always looked the same – Gillette launch a new razor platform every 8 years or so, until recently, with ‘more’ blades, and charge more for it on the basis that the technology is ‘breakthrough’ and the shave ‘better’. Schick then launch their ‘newer, better, more expensive’ razor, normally priced at a 10-20% discount to Gillette and try to gain market share. And so the cycle has continued.

Until now.

In 2008, our launch proposition wasn’t ‘More’ – it was ‘Less’. Shave closer, longer, for less was our consumer message, with our sharper, longer lasting Endurium coated blades, which cost approximately £1.25 per replacement cartridge versus Gillette’s £2.50 per replacement cartridge for Gillette Fusion Power. Gillette presented the consumer with a ‘forced hardware upgrade’ – their current TV ads still exhort men to ‘replace their Mach3 with a Fusion, or even now, replace their Fusion with a Fusion ProGlide’. What the ad doesn’t tell the consumer is that the replacement being sold them is even more expensive.

And as the Western World faces down the twin barrels of economic austerity and increased personal uncertainty, surely selling more products for more money isn’t the right thing to do? Especially when the profit margins in the replacement cartridge market are, well, absolutely unbelievably large. I know it costs about US$10-20c to make a high performance razor cartridge. But to then sell that cartridge at retail at over US$4, and use that profit to fund increasingly disconnected marketing campaigns to continue to fulfil that strategy will make the consumer question the price they are going to be asked to pay.

For sure, our competitors are in business to make a profit, and a return to their shareholders – the same as we are. But when you also realise that in another part of the world, the same company can make a system razor – albeit a one bladed system razor – and sell the replacement cartridge at US$11c? Well, that’s quite a difference.

For me, and our brand partnership with Remington, the future is all about the ‘Aspiration of Fair’. Fair has gained much respect in recent years, for example, in the area of ‘Fair Trade’ and sales of coffee – much of Starbucks coffee is now sold on a ‘Fair Deal to the Manufacturer’ basis. The Fair I’m talking about is delivering a close, comfortable and long lasting shave to a consumer, at a Fair, not artificially, monopolistically, over-inflated price. Fair is about looking at ways to make a razor cartridge last longer, deliver more value, not wear out so quickly – a feature that is ‘designed in’ to many of the competitor cartridges out in the market.

But, making a brand sing with success is more about making it fair. It’s about aligning aspiration, cool and desire to own. Ever since the launch of our shaving oil back in 1993, with just a few hundred sold, King of Shaves has carved out its own desirability in the market. Our shaving oil solved a problem – that of razor burn, suffered by millions of men who had sensitive skin. It succeeded because it took a niche position, hung its hat there, then determinedly decided to be on the side of men who had sensitive skin, allowing them to get a shave as close and comfortable as those men who had normal skin. It was on the side of the disadvantaged consumer.

And that is where we are now. Remington have turned to King of Shaves to enter the US wet shave market because we’ve developed a 17 year reputation for delivering on our brand promise – to give men the King of Shaves – and because we have been the only brand to successfully enter into, and compete in the wet shave market, not just in the UK, but also in other international markets including Japan, Australia and South Africa. In six years, we’ve developed an expertise in shaving hardware which is only going to improve in the coming years. We’ve invested in smart innovations, R&D and technology partnerships (witness our recent investment deal with Kai Industries of Japan), we’ve invested in delivering the King of Shaves, without the ransom, to tens of millions of men. And we’ve done this despite being a small company (retail sales of King of Shaves are about £24m) in the face of huge competition (Gillette’s and Schick Wilkinson Sword’s sales are in the $Billions).

As our competitors know, from small acorns do large oaks grow – remember, Gillette was founded by King C Gillette, Schick was founded by Colonel Jacob Schick – these companies had named founders, just as King of Shaves was founded by me, Will King. Successful companies of today are run by their founders – witness Steve Jobs at Apple, Sergey Brin at Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Companies that need to watch out for their challenger brethren are those run by marketing management types – companies that have lost connection with their customers, but continue to sell them what they’ve always sold them in the hope that the consumer will stick with them.

Well, the world’s a changing. The instant imperative that is social media is rapidly dismantling the ability of a brand to deploy ‘Brand Broadcast’ and convince consumers to buy from it – nowadays, it’s a much more difficult space to market in, being increasingly driven by ‘Digital Dialogue’ and ‘Word of Mouse’.

And I reckon when the word of mouse gets out that a mouse has roared that it is in the house, and is launching a cool new system razor, where cartridges don’t cost you an arm and a leg, but still deliver not only a close, comfortable shave – but the King of Shaves, we’ll catch a couple of elephants on the hop.

Simply put, I’m going to do my darndest to ensure that our partnership with Remington works, and that we create The King of Shaves Company – the world’s best (not necessarily biggest) shaving brand.

After a year of negotiations between King of Shaves and publicly listed Spectrum Brands, Inc. the US$3Bn revenues owner of Remington Consumer Products, I’ve signed a multi-year, multi-territory deal for this US$600m revenues division to launch King of Shaves shaving hardware & software in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina & Chile. I’m delighted about this, for reasons I’ll explain below, but to give you an idea how I feel about Remington, the company the late Victor Kiam made famous, read an extract from an interview I gave to Director Magazine in the UK in 2008, ahead of the launch of our revolutionary King of Shaves Azor…

In some ways, King’s high visibility approach is almost Bransonesque. And there are parallels with other famous business figures, notably Victor Kiam. Kiam was Remington’s biggest advocate, famously liking the brand so much he bought the company. King’s endorsement style is similar, although instead of buying in, King was forced to create the type of product he wanted to see on the shelves. After being made redundant from Hedges Wright Creative in 1993, he decided to concentrate on developing a shaving oil that could prevent shaving rash. Despite investment from his family and friends, the fledgling start-up was desperately short of cash. To save a couple of grand, King even filled the first 10,000 bottles of oil himself over the kitchen sink. But against development costs of £30,000, first-year sales were a paltry £300.

King kept himself going, inspired by a book he’d read about Kiam’s success with Remington. The book’s message, recalls King, was “to go for it”. And that’s just what he did, persuading Will Carling to endorse King of Shaves, and enlisting the help of Sophie Rees Jones (now the Countess of Wessex) at PR firm Brian MacLaurin Associates to push the product to the media. With the injection of £100,000 from a government loan scheme, the company secured a firmer financial footing, and by 2000 King and new partner Dayal were able to expand their range of shaving “software” and reach the US market. Success prompted one of two recurring questions: “People would either ask me, ‘When are you going to launch a razor?’ or ‘When are you going to be bought out by Gillette?’” King decided he didn’t want the latter–”They would never be interested in me anyway,” he says — so he set about launching a razor instead.

Trick or Treat? Halloween 2010.

And launch a razor we did! Treat. A razor that provoked (tricked..?) our established competitors into spending tens of millions of pounds in the UK trying to out-market us, and stop us gaining market traction (failed – we now have 10% system handle market share and the Azor was the #3 selling razor in the UK in the 52 weeks to end September 2010). Treat. A razor that has shaved millions off the cost of shaving, as our competitors repeatedly half price their handle price (but, unlike us, never cutting the cost of their hugely expensive razor cartridges – the latest costing nearly US$5. Treat. A razor that has won many awards, and has successfully launched in countries as diverse as Australia, Brazil, Japan and South Africa, with more coming on stream in 2011…

But to succeed with King of Shaves in the USA has always been my primary goal. Few British companies, let alone brands succeed in mainland USA, and that’s why I’m delighted that after months of talks, we have US$600m revenues Remington Consumer Products signed up to be our ‘Aircraft Carrier’ – prepared to let us take off Azor ‘Jet Fighter’ razor, and deliver American consumers, King of Shaves without Gillette’s cartridge ransom. Many Americans already think King of Shaves is a US brand – in fact, we’ve been in the USA for over 10 years – launching with Target in July 2000, and we’ve built strong brand foundations.

Dealing with huge US retailers however, has always been a challenge for us, and one I believe our partnership with Spectrum/Remington/Rayovac will allow us to overturn. We launched into the USA as a main board director of Target loved our shaving oil, and I know we have a couple of CEO fans of King of Shaves in the USA. But, buyers have always questioned our ability to support a market launch for King of Shaves in the USA with the millions of dollars necessary, not just for in-store trade marketing support, but also for the necessary consumer advertising. But, with this deal agreed with multi-billion dollar Spectrum/Remington and the game changing eruption of the power of marketing via social networking (Smarketing) will allow King of Shaves a unique opportunity to make the brand available to millions of American men and women, alongside a partner they know and trust, in a way that will be unique.

We actually had contact with (the then) Rayovac Corporation back in 2004, just after they’d bought Remington for US$330m and were looking to add a ‘wet shave brand’ to their portfolio – us. However, the timing then wasn’t right – we had only just put our Azor into development as Project Tomahawk, and weren’t sure we’d get the patents we knew we needed to genuinely compete with Gillette, then a corporation in its own right (it was bought by Procter & Gamble in 2005 for US$57Bn and Schick Wilkinson Sword, which had been bought by Energizer Holdings in January 2004 for US$930m. The then management at Rayovac (now 100% changed) didn’t give us the right feeling anyway, read private jets and debt fuelled expansion, but hey, that’s a story I’ll save for another time. Suffice to say, six years is a long time in our business, and I’m very happy to partner with Remington Products 2010 and their excellent team led by VP Drew Fiorenza in the US.

Wassup? Think Different, Do Different, Shave Different is what I say…

One of my favourite TV ads is ‘Wassup’ – developed for Budweiser – the US ‘King of Beers’ brand – one that would certainly be a social media hit today! The way we launch Remington | King of Shaves Azor in the USA will absolutely determine its success, but judging by the extraordinarily anodyne and lacklustre adverts our competitors are currently running, I think we have a great opportunity to capture the imagination of the US male, who may have been wedded to Gillette or Schick all his life, believing they are ‘the best’. Well, one’s a bit wet right now, and the other – well – it’s perhaps the best your dad can buy… So, Keep an eye out for our ad debut in 2011, and as I’m personally responsible for signing off on it, when you see it – let me know if you like it!

How all this will come to pass is obviously going to unfold over the next few months and years, but as I point out to those who are interested in finding how King of Shaves has succeeded in such a cut-throat market over many years, you’ll find the answers if you read Sun-Tzu.

The battle is won before it’s fought.

Food for thought, I hope.

So, why not make the change, join our Kingdom and ‘Be a King’ alongside me, as we change the face of shaving worldwide for better, Forever.

Will King
Founder, CEO & Chief Shaving Officer, The King of Shaves Company Ltd.

Yesterday, P&G (owners of Gillette) reported that although sales are up, earnings are down, and this will undoubtedly be a result of hugely increased trade and consumer marketing investments (especially relating to Fusion ProGlide, which will have cost tens of millions of dollars in marketing to ‘kick start’ sales). When you are a small, challenger brand – one that’s zagged into a space via specific product innovation, look, feel like we have, whilst you’d love to have tens of millions of dollars to invest, there simply isn’t that luxury.

But, nor was there at Apple in 1997. At that time, Microsoft looked wholly unassailable, Nokia & Ericsson were the dominant players in mobile phones, the first internet dotcom ‘goldrush’ was just about starting and multi-billion dollar businesses like Google, Facebook were still dreams. But, things started changing fast, companies that have adapted and innovated have grown and are winning out, and those that have stuck to the same old business model have failed.

In 1997, King of Shaves was just about to declare sales of £1.25m and profits of £125,000 (my business partner and I didn’t earn much that year, in order to declare a profit!) In 2010, we’ve just announced one partnership with Kai, and I have my eye on plenty more, so in 2011 we can grow our retail sales and brand awareness from the US$41m we’re at today, to my goal of $100m by 2012-13.

So, as Gillette introduce Gillette Guard, a single blade (!) system razor for emerging markets (with cartridges retailing at 11c) at one end of the market, and Fusion ProGlide, with cartridges at US$4 at the other end – you can see, there’s quite a Delta between their product offers. Uniquely, as (to date) they’ve had pretty much a monopoloy on the market (due to the lack of genuine competition, great product from Schick Wilkinson Sword) they’ve been able to sell billions of razor cartridges on a $3 margin and are betting Gillette Guard will also sell in the billions, on margins (annoyingly for Gillette, I bet) which are way way smaller…

As I’m no fan of monopolies, or cosy duopolies, I aim to insert King of Shaves into this shaving space, with the right products, at the right price, with the right partners, at just the right time. Timing, like luck, is much in life.

Tick…tock…tick…tock…Our time is Coming. Wish us luck.

For the 52 weeks to 4th September 2010, the King of Shaves Azor was the UK’s third best selling manual system razor handle. Further details on The King of Shaves Company Ltd. may be found by visiting our corporate site here.

We launched King of Shaves Azor M in February. Gillette announced the launch of Fusion ProGlide a day later. Schick (Wilkinson Sword) announced the launch of Hydro. And in September, we launched Azor M Sensitive in Tesco.

Schick Hydro launched in the USA in May, you can read my review on Hydro here. It’s sales initially looked promising, until Gillette unleashed Fusion ProGlide (and probably a Hundred Million dollars of marketing spend behind it). You can read my thoughts on ProGlide here. Anyhow, as quickly as Schick Hydro’s US market share went up, it went down (according to the IRI sales data I’ve seen anyway).

In short, Gillette did what it always does, spent huge amounts of money ensuring consumer traction with that particular competitor was limited.

And now, exactly the same pattern is going to repeated in the UK. Wilkinson Sword Hydro (Schick is Wilkinson Sword in the UK) will launch early October, in Boots and Tesco. And, a day after the Hydro press launch in the UK, held at the Design Museum happened, Gillette announce that it will unleash Fusion ProGlide in the UK in “Q1 2011″.

According to some documents I’ve seen, Wikinson Sword will be spending c£20m on the Hydro launch in terms of consumer & trade marketing. According to a press report on the Fusion ProGlide launch in Marketing, it’s going to be “the biggest FMCG launch in 2011″. Read marketing spend of, well – I’ll hazard a guess – five times Hydro, say £100m.

Why so large? Well, A) the migration of consumers into the Fusion hardware platform in the UK hasn’t been as strong as Gillette might like, with sales dropping off of legacy platforms (Sensor, Mach3) and of course, people continuing to migrate to our King of Shaves Azor platform (12,000+ handles & c80,000 cartridges sold last week alone) and B) as King of Shaves continues to grow, Gillette’s intent is to ‘squeeze’ Wilkinson Sword in a sandwich between them (on top) and us (coming up).

Ouch.

So, let’s summarise.

Wilkinson Sword are about to (finally) introduce an Open Architecture razor cartridge (after, apparently, 6-10 years of R&D, depending who you listen to). The Hydro platform isn’t compatible with the Quattro platform, so everyone who’s bought Quattro handles in the past year (including the powered Precision Trimmer product) won’t A) be able to use Hydro cartridges with them or B) will have to eschew Quattro and go to Hydro. As I’ve pointed out earlier, the Hydro cartridge (the 5 blade anyway) is OK, with one problem – it doesn’t have blade suspension (read comfortable shave) like King of Shaves Azor & Gillette Fusion have. It’s close for sure – but if you’ve got sensitive skin (like I, along with 53% of the male population have) then it’s a bit too close for comfort (in my Personal Honest Opinion).

Gillette are about to launch Their Most Expensive Razor Ever. They’re attempting to dull the effect on your wallet by (probably) selling the replacement in 3′s and 6′s (rather than our 4′s & 8′s) but mark my words, if Fusion Power ‘regular’ is £2.50/cartridge – or nigh on £20 for 8 (King of Shaves Azor 8 pack replacement cartridges are £9.49, less than half price) then Fusion ProGlide Power cartridges are going to be…I guess £2.99/cartridge.

That’ll make 8 cartridges £24 pounds.

Wilkinson Sword Hydro = Could have been a better, more ‘thought through’ razor.

Gillette Fusion ProGlide = A very good razor & closer comfortable shave, but EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE.

King of Shaves Azor & Azor M = A great razor, that delivers a CLOSE, COMFORTABLE shave but WITHOUT GILLETTE’S RANSOM

So, it’s fair to say there’s going to be a right old Battle Royal going on between now, and the end of Q1 2011 in the cut throat world of razors & blades.

What’s going to be our response. Well, as I read Sun-Tzu, I know that telegraphing your movements out to ‘the enemy’ is a somewhat short-sighted thing to do. And I also know a battle is won before its fought. We don’t have the cash of our competitors, but we do have another word beginning with C…

Watch this space…

“Octopus Man” …. “Make your Move…” And many more…

You’ll laugh at some of these! But who will win?

In early 2010, Boots, with whom we’ve always enjoyed a close, strategic partnership asked us what we might do in “Men’s” that would be genuinely new. There was a huge temptation for me to lead the project, as I had done “back in the day” – BUT – it was time to let the next generation of guys at King of Shaves lead the way. So I stepped back, and they stepped up to the challenge. They vox pop’d young guys, 14-25 asking them what they felt was missing in the sector. Lynx was oft mentioned as a ‘staple’ brand, but outside of this – they felt there wasn’t much for them. Then, they briefed the agency behind our remarkably successful Queen of… range for women, to come up with a range that would build on the King of Shaves tradition – a ‘zag’ product, which did things differently, quirkily but with the consumer always at the forefront.

Interviews were conducted, fashion stores visited, in the UK and overseas, and within a few short weeks, we had a concept to pitch to the extremely commercial (yet willing to take a risk) team at Boots. Having stepped back from the project, I only saw the creative executions just prior to the presentation.

Wow I thought. I’d have never been able to brief out an agency to come back with these!

And, so tomorrow, in Soho, London our new range KINGS launches. Note it’s not King’s – it’s not “my” range as such. No, the team were insistent it was about making the user of the product be the star of the show, the King. But they did add in it was since 1965, the year I was born…

Nice.

You can find Kings on the web here, facebook here and twitter here. Sadly, I can’t even be at the launch, due to a prior overseas commitment, but in a way – I feel glad about that. The King isn’t dead – he’s just stepped back to take stock of the Kingdom, and its time for “Long Live The Kings”.

If you don’t embrace the power of social media – well – you should.

—————–
Matt’s blog post in full below in case you don’t click through to read it. Unsolicited. Real.

I had a rather nice customer experience recently on Twitter.

Let me set a scene: I’ve been looking for a new razor to get rid of the fluff from my baby face. I’ve been a Gillette Fusion man for years, but with cartridges now costing about a tenner for just four refills, shaving with them has become an expensive proposition. Looking for an alternative, I happened across King of Shaves’ AZOR razor. At about half the price of the Fusion I thought it was worth a go.

In short, it wasn’t. I’d heard great things about this razor, but two major drawbacks kept me from wanting to use it again. First of all, there’s an unnecessary amount of space between the top of the cartridge and the first blade, making it pretty much impossible to get that bit under your nose effectively (I ended up having to use a spare disposable I had lying about to finish this bit off). Secondly, I felt like I had little control over the razor due to the lightweight plastic the handle is made from, unlike other premium razors which feel solid in the hand. This lack of control resulted in a few nicks, something I’d not done with the Fusion for years.

But this isn’t a blog about the joys of a DGS (that’s Damn Good Shave, for the uninformed – a useful and *entirely necessary* acronym I learned perusing the Badger and Blade forums), or the disappointment caused by anything less than a DGS. Nope, it’s a blog about how Twitter can be an incredible platform for opening communications with your customers and help to turn them into ambassadors for your brand. So lets move swiftly on…

While working a few days ago, I noticed an old colleague of mine, @ChrisCathcart, discussing the “banned” Barbarella X campaign (possibly NSFW link) from King Of Shaves on Twitter. As Chris had mentioned the brand, I took the opportunity to tweet back a little whinge about my recent experience with the Azor.

As it happened Will King, owner and head honcho at King of Shaves, was online at that very moment, and keeping an eye on his tweets. Within minutes I’d had a reply from @KingofShaves (and I choose to trust it *is* actually Will, although a more cynical man might suggest he has staff for that sort of thing) asking if I’d be willing to try out the new model, the Azor:M.

I replied in the positive (although I’ll admit I was a little concerned that I’d be subjecting my face to another shredding). Will simply asked that I follow him back so I could DM my address over, and my new Azor:M arrived just a couple of days later complete some some KOS Alpha shave gel – bonus!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am happy to report that my search for a cheaper DGS is complete! In developing the Azor:M and it’s “v2″ cartridge KOS have overcome both of my major issues with the previous version; the “M” in “Azor:M” stands for the most noticeable difference – a metal handle that feels much more solid and heavy in the hand, and the new cartridge has its blades nearer to the top, allowing for a much more precise shave, especially for that bit under nose. With no nicks and everything gone, I’ve been left with possibly the closest shave of my life.

But why should you care? As a digital marketing type, why should you care whether my face is baby smooth or looking like I’ve fallen asleep on a cheese grater?

Well, bear in mind that before Will saw my grumblings about his product via Twitter, I was very unlikely to promote the Azor (or anything from the King of Shaves range, for that matter) to anyone I knew. In fact, I’d actively discussed with a few friends just how disappointed I was with the original Azor. We can safely say I wasn’t in a rush to buy any more KOS products, or recommend them to a friend.

In the past, I’d have been pretty much lost to King of Shaves as a customer. The product hadn’t cost me enough or angered me sufficiently to demand a replacement or my money back from the store… I’d just written it off and decided to move on to something else. I certainly wouldn’t have contacted KOS to tell them how I felt, or expected them to contact me to ask. But by simply monitoring Twitter and spending a few minutes to contact me and offer a replacement, they’ve not only turned me into a customer (as I’ll be buying the v2 blades from now on, and the shave gel is nothing less than a revelation), but they’ve also got me wanting to tell others about the product.

We’ve run a number of successful campaigns for our clients at Fluid Creativity, where a giveaway of some sort was used as an incentive for the public to join in. These have been invariably the most successful – from “retweet to win” competitions to free promotional samples included in every order, so long as your product is good then people will love you for giving them a try for free.

Also, as one of the SEO bods around here, the opportunity to use this sort of conversation to build links is just too good to pass up. While it’s near impossible to control who is linking to you and where they might do it from, you can be fairly sure that with talk comes links – real, quality links, the kind of thing Google imagines all links should be, that en masse can help to improve your natural search positions and the amount of traffic you’re receiving from them.

It’s a simple thing, giving samples of your products away to attract attention and good press. There’s nothing new about freebies, but as people put more and more of their lives online (even the really petty stuff, like how they don’t like their new razor), it opens up more and more opportunities to target people with a real need for what you have, rather than those with a penchant for free stuff. These people are far more likely to use and appreciate your product, and may even go on to become evangelists for your brand.