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I. Executive summary King of Shaves (KOS) is a British-based shaving, skin care and grooming brand founded by Will King. King incorporated KMI (Knowledge & Merchandising Inc. Ltd. ) on April 13th 1993. It is KMI which owns the King of Shaves brand, along with other “premium-mass” toiletries brands. King of Shaves is sold internationally at the company’s web site and through retailers worldwide. The brand’s principle markets are the UK, USA, Australia, Scandinavia and New Zealand. II. Current marketing situation A. Market overview )Market demographics and needs 2. 1. 1 Market Demographics Geographic ???The immediate geographic target is the countries UK, USA, Australia, Scandinavia and New Zealand Demographics ???Principal customers are men. ???High income Behavior Factors ??? Good hygiene habits ???Concerned with appearance . 2. 1. 2 Market Needs King of Shaves seeks to fulfill the following benefits that are important to their customers. ???Quality: only sell products that can prove the quality ???Accessibility: People can easy by the products, by net or by the retailers that are increasing.
The life style is being more troubled and the need to have good looking is increasing, which makes the society more demanding and increases the integration need. The main users of King of Shaves products are men, but with the launch of products for women, they started to be consumers too. Users have good hygiene habits; they are concerned with their appearance and spend money to be more beautiful. These clients are very demanding and always want a good product, so King of Shaves has a concern with the products’ quality. The product itself is made for and to be used by the company. ii)Market trends and target market growth
Men are more worried about their appearance. Nowadays they don’t want only basic products, they want products to care their image, skin, hair, body, and so long. The concerns of men are changing and King of Shaves has a variety of products that can be offered to these consumers. The sales of this type of products are increasing, at the same time the sales of the King of Shaves products are increasing too. This is happening because more people are discovering the benefits of the King of Shaves products. B. SWOT analysis Strengths ???The recognized quality of its products ???Variety of productsWeaknesses Vulnerable to recession periods ???Company had very little money in the first period. Opportunities ???The needs are changing: the concern for hygiene habits is increasing, mostly with men ???Increase in “metro sexual” trends ???Participation within a growing industryThreats ???High competitive and specialized capability of companies present in market ???KOS has to face a strong competition ???Easily copied by competitors C. Competitive and industry analysis King of Shaves has to combat an aggressive competition, led by Gillette who owns 55% of the market share (in 1993), Colgate, Wilkinson Swords, Procter and Gamble’s Noxema.
These companies were already established and were well-known; they were the market leaders on the shaving segment. Later, Colgate and P specialized in different segments, making Gillette and Wilkinson Swords the biggest KOS opponents. On the segment of skin care and hair care products their opponents are Nivea and LYNX. And, in toiletries and cosmetics segment in Poland, where this kind of market is growing fast, and its potential competitors could be Gillette, PZ Cussons, Beiersdorf-Lechia, Wilkinson Swords, and Coty. D. Product Overview
The supply of products is constituted by two different sets: one constituted by soaps, foams, gels, and the other constituted by shaving instruments and systems. Later, the aerosol technology was introduced together with the Sensor two blade system razors, by Gillette. These products weren’t innovative, neither different from each other. E. Keys to success and critical issues The keys to success are the constant creation and production of products that meet the market needs/demand. King of Shaves pretends to ensure total customer satisfaction, providing products with a good quality.
When these keys are successfully achieved, the company becomes a profitable and sustainable company; that was what happened to KOS. The critical issues are that King of Shaves has to monitor customer satisfaction, to make sure that the products’ quality will never be forgotten in spite of the implemented growth strategy. Other point is to pay attention to their competitors, mainly Gillette, which can use strategies that could put KOS in dangerous. III. Environmental analysis A. Macro environmental factors B. Micro environmental factors
C. Competitive Strategy KOS started with a non-well defined strategy, making products like the ones they offer but for themselves. They show the clients that they have a high quality product that really works. They chose a strategy of differentiation/ innovation, selling the most expensive products of the market. IV. Marketing Strategy A. Mission King of Shaves mission is delivering the world’s best shaving, skin care and body care products that have been designed to exceed the expectations of the billions of men and women in the world.
B. Marketing objectives Their desire is to turn KOS into a global brand, and expand it to a franchise. Increase the number of customers Maintain the old clients C. Financial objectives They want to transform KOS into a global “billion dollar” brand. Sell more than a billion of dollars. D. Target Market In a first phase, King of Shaves consumer target is an open-minded and health concerned man, and with the introduction of products for women, KOS starts to care about them too.
Those men and women are concerned about their appearance, and belong to upper middle or lower upper class, with high level of income. E. Segmentation -Geographic segmentation: In a first face in UK, and after to US, Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavia. After the targeting analysis, we concluded that it could be found in big cities, where people are more concerned with the image and have a higher purchasing power. F. Positioning King of Shaves is a brand of beauty products, who’s positioning strategy, is based on a product differentiation.
In fact their products are different from the products of the other brands, because have some different components, some of the products are oil based, aloe based, made of silicone; other products are made in partnership with Ted Baker, and Paul Burfoot. Strategy summary The message that King of Shaves will seek to communicate is that they offer the best products, with the best quality. The first method that King of Shaves will use to communicate this is location. The place that King of Shaves has chosen to start to sell its products is Harrods’s, a London’s pre-eminent upscale department store that receives a lot of people.
This generates large amounts of visibility for, King of Shaves products. Another method of communication is advertisements are in the site. V. Marketing Mix A. Products GKOS Original shaving products are two natural essential oils, and two aloe based Alpha gels, one of them is similar to the original product, but with aloe, vitamin E and tea tree oil, and the other one is a non aerosol gel, aloe-based and low foaming with microcapsules which contained the oil, existing in two variants, the menthol and natural unmenthol.
Another range of products introduced is the men skincare, which includes a moisturizer K-24, a face wash K-FIRST, a face scrub K-XF and a post-shave, no-alcohol soothing gel K-GL. KINETIK is composed for an aerosol-powered shower gel and two body sprays. KINEXIUM, the deluxe and advanced product, which consists in oil (silicone gels ??? mentholated and not mentholated, that is an excellent lubricant, with a huge performance, inert and safety) a moisturizer and a post-shave balm and a natural spay deodorant (using rock salts) and another one with a fragrance.
KOS PROSHAVE, a line of silicone expertise knowing has “more conventional”, which are 2 silicone-based gels, and 2 foams. With the world-wide fragrance licensing agreement with Ted Baker, KMI launched the Skincare, and after its success launched a role of four new fragrances: Woman, Endurance Man, Endurance Woman, and M. In partnership with Paul Burfoot, FMI launched FISH Born in Soho, a line of funky, hip, young men’s hair wear and styling products. XCD-Enhance/Camouflage/Defend, a line of skin care products for men. ASC2 is an antibacterial range added to their products.
B. Pricing Concerning price, King of Shaves use the strategy of establishing a premium price in order to demark the brand from others as being high quality. King of Shaves use a skimming strategy that allows to differentiate its product and to obtain higher margins. Nevertheless, the fact that it presents an elastic demand, its price can never be too high in order to reduce the risk The average unit price of King of Shave’s products was above the average of the other brands, which was ? 3,57, comparing with the ? 2,04 of Gillette, ? 1,39 of Colgate,? ,30 of Wilkinson Sword, ? 2,87 of Nivea and ? 1,70 of Others. Particularly, the price of its original products was ? 2, 99. C. Promotion The first method of promotion was the “word of mouth”, the word was passed between friends, family, acquaintance, etc, it happens only because of the product’s quality and because the company did not have enough money to invest on this. In 1995 was developed the website shave. com that was a source for product information, customer feedback and sampling. The base of the sampling promotion was, again, its quality.
KMI contracted Jason Kidd, a NBA superstar, to be the face of their brand. D. Distribution channels Harrods’s, a London’s pre-eminent upscale department store. By 1995, KMI started the distribution to major UK drug and grocery retailers, such as Boots, Superdrug, Tesco, and Sainsbury. In 1996, Hiten Dayal assumed the position of Chairman, what brings to KMI the possibility of contacts with big companies and financial banking and provides business acumen. King of Shaves expands its products to outlets across London, including three major drugstore chains CVS, Walgreens and Wal-Mart.
VI. Marketing research In the case we can’t saw nada about this topic but we consider that is important, for instance King of Shaves do surveys to see what can’t of products their target sente mais necessidade, if the clients are satisfaitos with the products that the brand provide and so one. VII. Financials A. Sales/ Revenues KOF is an enterprise in continuous expansion. Since their appearance in the market, they never had a period of decline on its revenues. Measured in ? Sales199419951998199920002004*2008 (in US)* King of Shaves (units)9471122 Growth rate (units)—–18,48%
King of Shaves (value)30058 0002 000 0003 219 0004 002 00014 000 000$10 000 000 Growth rate (value)—–24,32 *expected values VIII. Controls A. Implementation To better describe the implementation process we decided to use the 3M model. In relation to the money, the only disposable information is that they started with little money. Concerning the minute component we do not have any information. For last, the initial structure was very simple and composed only for four people and today is composed by twenty-three people. B. Marketing organization Package and production manufacturing is done at sites located in Holland and Austria.
The uncharged persons for the marketing activities, responsible for coordinated the R&D, design, development of sales support material, logistics and procurement are Will and Herbie. C. Contingency planning Difficulties and risks: ???An already established competitor that chooses to compete on quality. ???Overly aggressive and debilitating actions by competitors. ???Problems developing brand awareness ???Economy entrar em recessao Worst case risks may include: ???Determining that the business cannot support itself on an ongoing basis. ???The inability to reach profitability