Gillette Advertising Marketing Case Study

Gillette is an American company founded by King Camp Gillette. It was founded on 1901 and until 1962 it did not have any serious competition. This can be explained by its constant concern for innovation, which follows the belief of its founder, “a successful invention is the one that is purchased over and over again by a satisfied customer”. (Original idea of William Painter)

For this reason, Gillette has always been trying to innovate in the market with new products. But they did not want their product to be bought just because they are a novelty but because it was perceived by the customer as a good quality product and have a staying power and product loyalty. This can be illustrated by the launch of the “Fusion” product by Gillette.

This was the world’s first 5 blade razor, introduced in 2006. At first customers bought it and generated a good amount of revenue, nevertheless Gillette feared that customers won’t buy the product again because the price of the refills was more expensive than their other products and this company makes its revenues from the sale of refills. In addition, the Consumer Reports concluded that there was no added value to this product, according to them, the “Fusion” line had the same benefits than the Match3 and they were both “the best a man can get”.

However, Gillette is not full of prosperity; it has also been victim of its own success. Due to the fact that this company had never had serious competition since it was founded until 1962, their executives were too confident that competitors were not a threat for them. As a consequence, they started to focus on buying new businesses and finding new ways to generate revenue.

The Gillette executive took misleading decision when th...

... middle of paper ...

...st gather information about the teen’s preferences, interests, etc.

Regarding competition, if business keeps innovating in marketing or product; it should not be worried about Shick since they are not a meaningful threat. Nevertheless, Gillette must not neglect the company again as it did in 1962, when Shick took over a significant portion of its market share.

For this, Gillette should also take into account that Shick has cheaper princes in their products for women and should implement a strategy to increase or maintain the customer’s loyalty to avoid them letting themselves buy Shick’s products because it is cheaper. Other thing they could do is to launch a new product to the market that competes with the cheap prices, in other words, it could increase its market share by creating a new product line that targets the same segment that its competitor aims.