When FMCGs Don’t Move Fast EnoughAccelerating the U.S. Men’s Shaving & Personal Care Categories

© Smirk International, Inc., 2008

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

Since when are perpetuities fast-moving? Never. One-hundred and thirty-three years ago, in 1895, the safety razor was commercialized in the United States by Gillette. It had one blade. As the “blade & razor” business model grew becoming a self-sharpening $2B business model over three generations, men now have five-bladed horsepower in their hands yet their shaving habits, routines, and attitudes haven’t changed a great deal. We smell a rat.

If you think about it, really, the premise of FMCGs in a world where human behavior lags informed consumer attitude, is oxymoronic; how can innovation inspire ‘appropriate’ functional requirements while satisfying a higher, and perhaps latent human element? Can you guess which one gets marginalized, literally?

If an aerosol can can dispense paint and shaving cream equally, just how inspired can a man become when he is performing man’s primal enhancing act of shaving? A can is a vessel, a dispenser, not a calibrated tool. Shaving is the core of man’s hygienic and grooming activities - shaving is a self-actualizing performance using “hand-to-eye” coordination. It requires skill, intuition, and alertness.

“Grooming”, the all-purpose umbrella for categorizing pre-shave-post activities and products, has become complex for something so basic as “shit, shower, and shave.” Well-established brands with their own or borrowed equities are innovating their portfolios by systematizing steps, procedures, routines of cosmetics practices and transferring them to men. “For Men” infers there is another constituency; men are confused by the paradox of choice, selection by de-selection, and the effemination of their rituals. And consumer choices are more polarized than the male behavior it seeks to influence.

Isn’t the best a man can get what he does naturally? How he instinctively and intuitively recognizes and relates to great design - form and function, how he incorporates and improvises to achieve his objective. If that is what man does then why isn’t the category delivering an optimally designed experience for one of man’s most important and defining occasions?

The Situation

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The Evolution of Grooming

100,000 BC 3,000 BC 2,800 BC 1900 1901 1928 1950 1965 1971 1974 1975 1990 1997 1998 2004

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A man who lives to be eighty will spend some 2,965hours shaving

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In 2006, men’s skin care became the single-fastest growing category in the global cosmetics and toiletries industry, growing at 11% annually.

2X faster than women’s

Kline Europe, 2006 Men’s Study

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The Resolution

All-Purpose Specialized

VS

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Restore manhood, logic, and dignity to the modern man’s shaving and grooming experience.

Distill the complex and ambiguous category of male grooming, by creating premium tools designed for man to achieve his hygienic and grooming objectives. Anti-regimen and process oriented.

Transform and elevate utilitarian male and ‘for men’ shaving and grooming products from functional dispensers to innovative, purposeful, and crafted objects designed for what man does.

Design intuitive forms that inspire man to craft his own image.

Men look better today than they have in a while, for practical reasons - they have more options and choices, their influences are more global, and confidence can be expressed in more innovative ways. But despite the acceptance of men’s grooming as a behavior or custom, each individual man defines his own masculinity by his attitude. Shaving is the unifying masculine act - it is democratic, but it is an independent quest for self actualization.

Today’s man living and working in and between urban and suburban environments is exposed and compared to more types of men than previous generations. And men are competing on an unprecedented matrix-like level, from Internet-based video gaming to the traditional corporate rat race, from electronic dating to reality television. Three generations of men with slightly different perspectives, values, and practices are stretching the original archetypes of man. It’s a primary reason why most marketers attempts to resonate with the traditional 18-34 male demographic are unsuccessful.

In fact, beyond more options and availability to select from at mass retail formats, men are actually growing the category because they are becoming the primary household grocery shopper. Shifts in traditional and accustomed gender roles, responsibilities, and demonstrative behaviors have, and are, impacting man’s essence. The category offers products he doesn’t need, solutions to problems he doesn’t experience, women’s skin care and cosmetics products blatantly re-packaged and re-formulated disguised as “for men”, and a growing neo-culture of groomingnista’s whose main objectives appears to be the feminization of man.

Open any male lifestyle magazine and you will see editorial and advertisements specifically for grooming, shaving, and fragrance. Today a man can be any kind of man he wants to be, but he is still a man. Too many grooming brands belittle, challenge, and distort the modern male; to shop for shaving or grooming products by comparing identical but different colored cans below eye level is ridiculous. Men shouldn’t have to pay female-indexed prices for products that they may need but use differently.

No two men are alike but all men are the same. Appealing to this human insight is a strategic differentiating factor that will create a leadership positioning in a fragmented category. Designing the brand experience that inspires each man to evolve into himself is what the category is in need of.

The Mood

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Cultural Context 2008

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Cultural Context 2008

The Strategic Components

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Create a premium-level portfolio of innovative and performance-grade products designed for man’s pre-shave-post functions.

Ease, convenience, value for repeat and adoption.

Create emotional reason to “trade-up” in the categories.

Ecologically sensitive and responsible.

Simplify and unify the shopping experience with smart adjacencies.

Premium-priced to FDM skin care brands - Neutrogena Razor Defense, King of Shaves, Nivea for Men; in-line with L’Oreal Men’s Expert.

Positioning is 3 Prong: functional, technical, emotional benefit-driven.

Use weight of national mass brands’ communications as education and indoctrination for new and latent category users.

Build a non-traditional, independent DTC network.

Generate awareness, consensus, trial, and cultural vetting of products.

Intuitive tools for man’s activities

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The Strategy

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If we understand what man does as a human we can design an end-to-end experience for him that is predictable, safe, and aspiring that he will incorporate into his lifestyle - routines, habits, rituals, and replenishment behaviors.

Differentiation as a textural application to the Smirk brand ethos will be evident in three primary areas: (1) Brand experience, (2) Packaging and design, (3) Simplicity and accessibility in existing mass retail formats vs specialty store. An acute study of culture will inform assortment, selection, application, and adoption.

Seventy-five percent of men purchase shave, toiletries, and personal care products at FDM, so it makes pragmatic sense to meet and accommodate them in their existing footprint; if they are likely to trade-up they will most likely do so in FDM than migrating to department and specialty formats.

The proliferation of niche male skin care and grooming brands in the last three years is typical of a nascent segment experiencing growing demand. However, most brands are simply repackaged yet sold through identical distribution formats, creating clutter and confusion.

The Smirk brand architecture is a trinity of what man innately does - clean, shave, and groom. They are necessary human elements that define and distinguish one man from the next.

TECHNIC

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SPECIA

LIZ

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(Male)

(Problem-Solution)

AUTHENTICITYBEAUTIFICATION

IMAGE PRODUCT

Obtained a 3 share in a $3.5B+ category by creating a definitive leadership position by designing innovative shave and grooming products and solutions at mass. Smirk’s eight-product deep portfolio, some patentable, will be gradually released into the marketplace over a five year period. This creates a sustainable product pipeline, creating incremental product adoption by users.

Established a new premium segment by leveraging design, intuition, and creativity to trade-up consumers in a stagnant category by creating unique adjacencies.

Defined the role of “sustainability” in men’s grooming by setting new standards in the use, application, and craftsmanship of ecologically friendly (B4U) ingredients, materials and recyclables with a mass appeal cost/value proposition.

Created a national footprint in nationally branded FDM in key BDI areas; Developed a self-perpetuating independent network of DTC representatives, creating an organic and ancillary revenue pipeline.

Resuscitated masculinity in male grooming by heightening the experience of the action of shaving and grooming. Becoming the perceptual mindshare category leader among alpha and influencer men.

Outmaneuvered the competition by creating a mutual dialogue and stronger rapport with modern men, while developing new touch points for the brand and products to interact in non-commercial environments.

Exiting by divesting to strategic and/or financial concerns at a premium sales multiple; purchase price to exceed $150M.

Six-Year Vision

PLACEHOLDER IMAGE ONLY

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“Heightening the experience of What Man Does”