In the razor selling business, Gillette’s most cut-throat competition is itself. Dominating the market with a reported 85 per cent of sales, Gillette builds on its success with constantly evolving product innovations and prestige-pumping campaigns to boost total category usage.

Armed with two new sets of product to promote – the Gillette Fusion Power ‘Phenom’ razor as well as the Gillette Series of toiletries for men – the company wanted to maximise awareness of the new shaver and the supporting merchandise, while simultaneously generating demand by challenging the stereotypically male reluctance to practise any kind of skincare routine.

The strategy
‘Our target market, aspirational males between the ages of 18 and 35, is hard to reach in advertising terms,’ says Nathan Homer, Gillette business director. ‘The problem is exacerbated because we look to achieve retail level consumer engagement in shops such as Superdrug, which is a store environment that favours females.’
Gillette briefed the digital brand experience agency Iblink to help it realise its campaign.
‘We have a history of shopper marketing activities with Superdrug and Iblink is the partner of choice for Superdrug when carrying out in‑store activities. We’d also carried out successful events with Iblink previously, such as the Fusion Stealth razor amnesty marketing campaign,’ says Homer.
Gillette decided that an introductory promotional discount combined with a competition, with entry via product purchase, would provide the right hook to reel in the attention of its male consumers.
Out‑of‑home media was selected as the primary channel of communication for the campaign, as it would target males proactively where they are known to congregate in large numbers, specifically when commuting to work in central London.
‘Iblink helped us to bring our ideas to the next level, making sure we were following the shopper in his commuting day, with all available tools, such as digital outdoor media, Bluetooth messages and so on,’ says Homer.

The execution
Digital six-sheet-poster sized advertising appeared in all London rail terminals from the last week of February for two weeks. The campaign ran in 10 railway stations on a total of 106 poster screens, broadcast when the railway stations were at their busiest. The digital creative, which used eye catching moving imagery, introduced the Gillette Series products and the 33 per cent price promotion, and invited entry to a competition.
Accompanied by the tagline ‘Live like a Champion – Experience the Best’ the competition offered winners a choice of ‘aspirational’ prizes, all with ‘man appeal’: a tailor made Savile Row suit, a supercar for the weekend, or a chauffeured speedboat trip to a show at the O2 arena.
‘The winning opportunity was perceived to be high, with every participating Superdrug store having its own winner,’ says Homer. ‘Entry – via product purchase – could be made only in‑store on a given day. To facilitate participation, GPS based messaging enabled consumers to text for the location of their nearest store.’
On the day of the competition, roaming street teams toured the vicinity of the 50 busiest Superdrug stores to catch the attention of consumers and drive more shoppers into outlets.
Gillette embraced its target market’s interest in gadgets, while covering all bases with additional traditional advertising. ‘Armed with ”bluecasting” pods housed in branded Gillette rucksacks, our street teams communicated the competition and price promotion by broadcasting Bluetooth advertising to mobiles, as well as distributing conventional leaflets,’ says Homer.....

Questions
1. The brief describes Gillette’s target market as ‘aspirational males between the ages of 18 and 35’. Explain the concept of segmentation, targeting and positioning.
2. Critically discuss the communications strategy used by Gillette in the case study.
3. Discuss the role of branding in any company’s marketing strategy.
4. Recommend and justify an alternative promotional campaign that Gillette could have used instead of the one they used.