Account Planning School of the Web: KoS

APSOTW
A (cultural) strategy for ʻKing of Shavesʼ.

Thomas Wagner (@thomas_wagner)
wagner.thomas1@gmail.com
Vienna, Austria

Mapping the Cultural Orthodoxy of
Shaving.

Some History

Men always had facial hair.
We know that culture has celebrated beards
and also removed them for millennia. This was
and is for various reasons. Of the more
practical ones: to avoid being grabbed at the
beard by an enemy during a battle. A shaved
Alexander the Great is supposedly responsible
for the widespread adoption of shaving among
his soldiers.
Beards have always served as a signal to
distinguish men and women. Beards have also
distinguished farmers from lords and blue- from
white-collar workers. Beards have therefore
always been a rich symbolic territory.

How-To

Before the 20th century men largely used single
razors. And if they didnʼt do it themselves,
barbers offered a professional shave for the
men who could afford it.
“The 1880′s to the 1940′s were the golden age for
barbershops. During this time, men socialized in
all male hangouts, and barbershops rivaled
saloons in popularity. Visiting the barbershop was
a weekly, and sometimes daily habit. Men would
stop in not only for a haircut and a shave, but also
to fraternize with friends and chew the fat.”
Then came Mr. Gillette and invented the safety
razor and after the wars, almost everybody used
safety razors. Barbershops on the other hand were
mostly wiped off the urban landscape.

The status-quo.

Even with the threat of being grabbed in a battle
gone, more than 1.7 billion men worldwide age
15 years and older remove hair. 1.3 billion men
shave with a blade and razor.
The routine depicted to the left happens again
and again and again without much thinking -
most of the time with a Gillette razor, in front of
a mirror or in the shower.
The clean-shaved men is now established
mainstream. As are the billion dollar business-
model that he supports and the values the
category is built upon. Both are worth exploring.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28177041@N03/3001229803/sizes/z/in/photostream/

A Business Model Culture
of “Fuck everything. We're
doing five blades.”
“The market? Listen, we make the market. All we
have to do is put her out there with a little jingle.
It's as easy as, 'Hey, shaving with anything less
than five blades is like scraping your beard off with
a dull hatchet.' Or 'You'll be so smooth, I could
snort lines off of your chin.' Try 'Your neck is going
to be so friggin' soft, someone's gonna walk up and
tie a goddamn Cub Scout kerchief under it.'”

This is a category that poured $750 million into
R&D for a razor with three blades. Shortly after the
satirical Onion piece, five blades were a profitable
reality. This is a category that buys into the sciency,
modern promise of progress, as in more is always
better. And it also buys into the power of making
people believe that.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades,11056/

“Do men really need the new
five-
bladed Fusion, especially cons
idering
that Gillette is planning to sell Fus
ion t
blades at a stiff 30% premium ov he r azor heads tha
er what it harp practice? T 2 .4 3
now charges for "the best a man “S
ak e, but sell for £
http://www.businessweek.com/bw
nf20050915_1654_db035.htm
daily/dnflash/sep2005/
can get?" cost just 5p to m t-
-razor-heads-cos
each ” ticle-1191456/Sh
arp-practice-The
ail.co.uk/news/ar
m
http://www.daily ml#ixzz1KcuMao
dT
just-5p-make-sell-2-43-each.ht

rst
blade s were a joke. The fi
zors with multiple riple
“ON CE upon a time, ra mock commercial for the ''T
Night Live'' included a e
br oadcast of ''Saturday gan : 'Because you'll believ
razor, featuring the slo
Track,'' a three-bladed
anything.'” m/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E2DB153FF93AA25752C0A9609C8B63
http://query.nytimes.co

“Some dermatologists
say the five-blade des
more blades mean mo ign smacks of overkill,
re friction, and frictio because
add more blades, ther n irritates the skin. ''W
e's a greater chance o hen you
Ezra Kest, a dermatolo f nicks and razor burn
gist in Beverly Hills. 'I ,'' said Dr.
not to use more tha always tell my pat
n two blades.'” ients

So what values does the category reinforce?
The modern men myth.

In ʻ93 we see the ʻmodernʼ man.
Modern, as in thriving and giving everything in
business, married, being a part-time father, athletic,
nice and shaved.

In ’11 we again see the ‘modern’ man.
And he is still thriving and giving everything in
business, married, athletic, nice and shaved.
He might be full-body shaved, own an iPhone and
he might not work at Wall Street anymore, but not
that much has changed on a deeper level. This is in
accordance with the male mainstream that - in
surveys - associates ʻmodernʼ with cosmopolitan,
career-minded and athletic while women say they
regard men as modern if they are empathetic and
treat them on equal terms.

http://diestandard.at/1282979025078/Deutschland-Der-moderne-Mann-ist-nur-ein-Mythos

To sum it up: the Gillette-shaved man isn't exactly a
realistic, interesting or multilayered guy. And once he
does 'interesting' things, he gets axed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/24/tiger-woods-dropped-by-gillette

Is all of this really 'The Best a Man Can Get'?
This is a market that made a joke and billions of dollars
out of a once proud ʻmanlyʼ activity. Of a territory that was
once regarded noble, even sacred maybe.
The shaved man in the norms of the category could be
seen as a symbol of men's submission. Submission to a
corporate lifestyle and norms that regards facial hair as
unprofessional and to an advertising and marketing
machinery that treats them as dumb and needy.
… like literally'
'It g liiiides
ove this
– My w ife will l
lieben’
ra u wird's kisses.’
'Meine F ‘Figh t ... for

Men* Are Under Pressure.
On average, men are still earning more money
than their female counterparts. They still hold
the majority of senior positions in corporations
and still only do a fraction of our worldʼs unpaid
work.
Numbers tell only so much though: real
economic trends, pop culture and media
discourse makes many men feel under
pressure.
After the ʻhe-cessionʼ, there is now a lot of talk
about the end or decline of men. Globalization,
immigration, highly educated and emancipated
women - the ʻmodernʼ man has more things
than ever to ʻworryʼ about and less time, money,
rights and knowledge to actually do ʻtraditionally
manlyʼ things.

* Here meaning men in ʻWesternʼ countries. Unfortunately I canʼt conﬁdently stretch this assumption to Asia, Africa or South America.

So Some Men Are Angry...
They retreat and turn to things that allow them to
vent, like voting for right-wing, xenophobic parties in
Europe for example, or buying a Dodge.
This path would also be the easy shortcut for King
of Shaves: Riding the wave of a destructive male
backlash until it breaks. But this would be a
mistake, as backlashes are usually more short-lived
than media discourses would want us think.
As sociologist Kimmel puts it: Men have two
options.
“Are we going to be dragged into the future,
kicking and screaming -- like the men's rights guys
-- or are we going to go boldly, fearlessly, and say,
‘What a minute: What's in this for men?’”

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/03/29/scott_adams_mens_rights_movement/index.html#

.. and Others Take The
Chance
Many men today, like women, take a chance to
explore their roles and experiment with them. They
can use this to rediscover what it means to be a
man in all the different aspects of life.
“What the data clearly shows is that the men who
embrace gender equality are actually happier,
healthier, live better lives, have better relationships
with their friends, their wives and their kids. So I
don't think it's going to catch on.” (Kimmel)
This doesnʼt mean they arenʼt be interested in
traditionally masculine things. On the contrary, men
working in ofﬁce jobs increasingly desire authentic,
DIY, real and interesting stuff. But unlike their
reactionary gender-mates they acknowledge
equality and are not afraid of the future.
They can even admit weakness as a hero or
increasingly embrace sex toys as a partner or ...

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/02/19/vibrators_men

... show some countercultural facial hair
that says “Iʼm not a suit”, ...

... and maybe even visit a barber shop now and then.

Also nowandnext.com brainmail.

This is the shift that Kind of Shaves should embrace: let the brand
perform for men who are conscious about being good men. Men who
might feel the pressure, but who take the best of male heritage while
embracing a future, which might include cooking, looks and other things
traditionally gendered female. King of Shaves should celebrate modern
menʼs journey and quest to become better in a world that doesnʼt really
welcome them with open arms. Achievement, in this sense, isnʼt a
milestone men reach, but the journey they are on. King of Shaves is here
during that journey, from the ﬁrst whisker, to the ﬁrst date, to the day
when the next generation takes over. Because a part of what will make a
gentlemen, now or in the future, is a decent shave.

Source Material for the King of Shaves.

We know most interesting man in the world doesn't
always drink beer. But apparently he also doesn't
needily shave in a ﬁght for kisses.

(Could you overhear him say “I donʼt always shave, but when I shave I donʼt use
one of those 5 blade pseudo-tool for kiddies”?)

Would they shave with ﬁve super-thin Gillette
blades and say “Ohh ... it glides”?

Or would Tom Fordʼs ﬁve rules for a modern
gentlemen ever include a Gillette razor?
“1. You should put on the best version of yourself when you go
out in the world because that is a show of respect to the other
people around you.
2. A gentleman today has to work. People who do not work are
so boring and are usually bored. You have to be passionate, you
have to be engaged and you have to be contributing to the world.
3. Manners are very important and actually knowing when
things are appropriate. I always open doors for women, I carry
their coat, I make sure that they're walking on the inside of the
street. Stand up when people arrive at and leave the dinner
table.
4. Don't be pretentious or racist or sexist or judge people by their
background.
5. A man should never wear shorts in the city. Flip-flops and
shorts in the city are never appropriate. Shorts should only be
worn on the tennis court or on the beach.”
- While #5 might be a bit superﬁcial, the other points resonate with what King of Shaves
should be.
http://www.anothermag.com/exclusives/tom-ford

King of Shaves should base itself on the
assumption that certain good things men did
in the past are still valid and relevant today
and will be tomorrow - a good shave for
example, or even a good shave in a barber
shop. And it should also be conﬁdent about
doing supposedly female things, such as
taking care of kids or cooking. Therefore, the
source material is everything that supports this
believe and can give conﬁdence and a guiding
light for the many men out there. These can be
biographies, books about manners, the current
discourse or the stories of the men we want to
celebrate.

Milton Glaser once said that not less is more,
but ʻJust Enough is Moreʼ. One doesnʼt need
less experience to be a good men in a certain
situation, but just enough. The King of Shaves
uses two blades, which are just enough. It charges
less money than Gillette, but ʻenoughʼ to be good
quality. It celebrates manliness, but not in an
extreme and overdone, but subtle way that
communicates understatement and conﬁdence.

All of the before-mentioned raises a question
about doing and merely playing a role.

“The riggers, welders, and boilermakers of generations past weren’t
wearing overalls to feel like men, as Susan Faludi, the author of books on
both sexes, has pointed out. Instead, ‘their sense of their own manhood
flowed out of their utility in a society, not the other way around,’ she writes.
‘Conceiving of masculinity as something to be turns manliness into
[something] ornamental, and about as ‘masculine’ as fake eyelashes are
inherently ‘feminine.’”
As Tom Ford puts it: “You have to be passionate, you have to be engaged
and you have to be contributing to the world“. True ʻmanlinessʼ is something
to be done, not something to be played. And doing means experiencing to
gain experience. Axe offers an instant solution to manliness, but real man
know that there are no shortcuts to interestingness - or becoming a
good man.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/20/why-we-need-to-reimagine-masculinity.html#

This suggests two things:
1) Men donʼt have the time, talent, guts or money to do all the stuff the Most
Interesting Man In The World, the Man Your Man Could Smell Like or Sean
Connery do, so the King of Shaves should bring them closer to the alluring
world of modern, storied gentlemen. All of this without the irony of the before
mentioned, but with dry understatement.
2) Gillette demands more than double the price for its high-tech blades. Men
donʼt need ﬁve blades and they certainly donʼt want to pay a 100% price
premium to a billion dollar corporation. There is simply no good reason a
Gillette Fusion should be in a manʼs toolkit.

What to do?
1) In TV (if possible) and print, celebrate the history of multifaceted,
multilayered men who know the rules for a future-oriented modern
gentlemen. People like Keith Richards, Sean Connery, Tom Ford and The
Most Interesting Man In The World are interesting blueprints for men who
have learned and experienced a lot and who could credibly say that paying
12$ for unnecessary, sciency shaving tech isnʼt exactly the smart manʼs
choice.
2) Associate King of Shaves with an authentic barber shop shave. On the
website and maybe packaging conﬁdently stress the heritage, importance
and beneﬁts of a great barber shop shave now and then. Provide a barber
shop map. Make barber shops Kind of Shavesʼ best friend, so that they
suggest King of Shaves as the best non barber shop experience. If necessary
and possible produce one original single blade for barbers.
3) Combine 1 and 2.
4) As for tone and setting: Let the men have a beard. Beards are a rich
symbol and eventually have to be shaved or trimmed. King of Shaves doesnʼt
have a reason to be afraid of beards or barber shops.
5) Consider switching packaging to ʻjust enough is moreʼ style (e.g. wooden-
style, minimalistic metal) to distinguish from the tech-design of the category.

In a world that has lost the sense for what 'manliness' and
'masculinity' actually means, King of Shaves celebrates the
modern gentlemen.
These are men who are fed up with the old role models and
cliches of what it means to be a 'true man' as much as they don't
plan to fall into oblivion. Men who know the good manners that
being a good man brought with it in the past, as well as the
future challenges that lie ahead. Men who seek to navigate
through the interesting journeys of life on a quest to become
better as a person. Men who know their heritage, but who are
not afraid of the future. Or of women, for that matter.
King of Shaves is here to light a light for them, as they are
confronted with the many options and traps modern society has
laid out for them. We believe that just enough is more and true
confidence isn't associated with the riches we carry, but the
things that made us. We don't buy into the old masculine mantra
of 'failure is not an option' but encourage making experiences,
for experience is what really makes the man of the 21st century.

Account Planning School of the Web: KoS

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Featured

Featured (20)

Account Planning School of the Web: KoS