INDEX: Gillette Display Merchandising Fixtures

INDEX:
Gillette Display Merchandising Fixtures

Gillette Display Merchandising Fixtures

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This Gillette Display Merchandising Fixtures index page aggregates links
to all posts and photos of retail merchandising, display, and outfitting
as well as deep Background courtesy of Wikipedia.

BACKSTORY: Gillette is an American brand of safety razors and other personal care products including shaving supplies, owned by the multi-national corporation Procter & Gamble (P&G). Based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, it was owned by The Gillette Company, a supplier of products under various brands until that company merged into P&G in 2005. The Gillette Company was founded by King C. Gillette in 1901 as a safety razor manufacturer.^[2]

Under the leadership of Colman M. Mockler Jr. as CEO from 1975 to 1991,^[3] the company was the target of multiple takeoverattempts, from Ronald Perelman^[4] and Coniston Partners.^[3] In January 2005, Procter & Gamble announced plans to merge with the Gillette Company.^[5]

The Gillette Company’s assets were incorporated into a P&G unit known internally as “Global Gillette”. In July 2007, Global Gillette was dissolved and incorporated into Procter & Gamble’s other two main divisions, Procter & Gamble Beauty and Procter & Gamble Household Care.^[6] Gillette’s brands and products were divided between the two accordingly. The Gillette R&D center in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Gillette South Boston Manufacturing Center (known as “Gillette World Shaving Headquarters”), still exist as functional working locations under the Procter & Gamble-owned Gillette brand name.^[7] Gillette’s subsidiaries Braun and Oral-B, among others, have also been retained by P&G.

In some languages, the brand has become the genericized trademark for all razor blades, for example in Czech (žiletka), Estonian (žilett), Latvian(žilete), Macedonian (žilét), Polish (żyletka), and Serbo-Croatian (žilet).

The development of Gillette’s first twin-blade razor began in early 1964 in the company’s Reading laboratories in England when a new employee, Norman C. Welsh, experimented with tandem blades and discovered what he called the “hysteresis effect”; a blade pulling the whisker out of the hair follicle before cutting it, and enabling a second blade to cut the whisker even shorter before it retracted back into the follicle. For six years afterwards, Welsh and his colleagues worked on a means of utilizing the hysteresis effect, almost exclusively concentrating on what would later be known as the Atra twin-blade system. The Atra razor featured two blades set in a plastic cartridge with edges that faced each other. Using the razor required the user to move it in an up-and-down scrubbing motion, and whiskers were cut on both the up and down strokes. Another twin-blade system with blades set in tandem, codenamed “Rex”, also existed, but it had too many technical problems and was behind Atra in development.^[41]

In consumer tests, the Atra razor had outperformed existing razor systems, but Gillette’s marketing executives feared the razor would meet resistance among shavers due to the unfamiliar scrubbing motion required to use it. Even though the Atra project was so far along in mid-1970 that packaging and production machinery was nearly ready for a full market introduction, Gillette decided to start a development drive to finish Rex instead as it did not require learning a new way to shave. The project succeeded, Atra was abandoned, and Gillette announced the first twin-blade razor – now renamed to Trac II – in the fall of 1971. The Trac II captured the premium shaving market and came out in time to counter Wilkinson Sword’s Bonded Blade system that utilized single-blade cartridges.^[42]

In 1974, the French Société Bic introduced the world’s first disposable razor. The razor was first brought to the market in Greece, where it sold well, after which it was introduced to Italy and many other European countries. Gillette hurried to develop their own disposable before Bic could bring their razor to the United States. Gillette designed a single-blade razor similar to Bic’s but soon abandoned the concept in favor of a razor that was essentially a Trac II cartridge molded into a blue plastic handle. Gillette introduced this disposable as the Good News in 1976, about a year before Bic’s razor reached the United States, and managed to establish market leadership once Bic and other competitors came to market. Good News was released under various names in Europe and was equally and sometimes even more successful than Bic’s razor. Gillette quickly brought its razor to markets Bic hadn’t yet reached, such as Latin America where the razor was known as Prestobarba.^[43]

In Latin America, Gillette used a so-called cannibalization strategy by selling the razor in several market segments: along with the heavily advertised Prestobarba, the razor was also sold under different names – such as Permasharp II in Mexico and Probak II in Brazil – and sold for at least 10 to 15 percent less. The less expensive variants were differentiated from the blue Prestobarba by manufacturing them from yellow plastic with handle less ergonomically comfortable, and in addition, they were not advertised or eventually has negative marketing^[44] aimed at promoting the sale of the most profitable products in Gillette’s razors line. The strategy was successful and later market arrivals were unable to gain a major foothold. Once the approach proved to be a successful one, Gillette’s subsidiaries in Russia, Poland, and multiple Asian and Near Eastern markets began utilizing the same strategy.^[45]

While Gillette managed to retain market leadership against Bic and other competitors, the popularity of disposable razors, their higher production cost compared to cartridges, and price competition eroded the company’s profits. Gillette had at first hoped that disposables would take no more than 10 percent of the total razor and blades market, but by 1980, disposables accounted for more than 27 percent of the world shaving market in terms of unit sales, and 22 percent of total revenue.^[46]^[47] John W. Symons began steering Gillette into a different direction after becoming the director of Gillette’s European Sales Group in 1979. Despite Gillette’s strong sales and a large share of the European razor and blades market – 70 percent, which was higher than in the United States – cash flow was declining. In Symons’s view, the issue was Gillette’s attempt to compete with Bic in the disposables market, which was eating into the sales of its more profitable cartridge razors. Symons reduced the marketing budget of disposables in Europe and hired the advertising agency BBDO‘s London branch to create an ad campaign to make Gillette’s blade and razor systems – such as Contour – more desirable in the eyes of men. The new marketing strategy, combined with cutting costs and centralizing production increased profits. In 1985, Gillette’s profits in the European market were $96 million, while two years previously they were $77 million.^[48]

In 1980, Gillette introduced Atra – known in Europe as Contour – a twin-blade razor with a pivoting head. The razor became a best-seller in the United States during its first year and eventually became a market leader in Europe.^[49] (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

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