Background:
I, personally, would never have adopted DE wet-shaving had I not stumbled across his old Gillette Tech and brush in his medicine cabinet years back. With several generations of children now born into the cartridge era, they may not have grandparents who used a traditional razor.
As canned goop and high capacity multi blade assault razors become more popular in countries that are still mainly DE/SE/Injector/StraightRazor countries, and holdouts of the DE/etc generation pass on or give up the old style razors, the market for traditional wet-shaving items grows ever smaller.
As the market shrinks, and production volume decreases, prices go up. As prices go up, sales go down, and manufacturers cease operation. Eventually, this leads to the shavepocalypse...
Objective:
Prevent the shavepocalypse.
Method:
Increase number of consumers for wet-shaving products.
Execution:
As I see it, theres a few main appeals to going to DE shaving. We have the lure of a better quality shave, the appeal of lower costs, environmental concerns, and the retro/nostalgia attraction. Given the current economic money crunch, now seems like a good time to focus on cost, but the environmental impact is good at any time.
In order to increase the number of consumers, we have to inform them, and attract them. I can't help but think that the college campus setting is a great place to push the cost and environmental points. I would suggest that we do the following:
1. Launch our own non-scientific study using board members. We divide into three groups. One group shaves with the most economical (Or at least, the cheapest they can stand) disposable razors and canned goop, the second group will use a cartridge razor system and canned good, the third group shaves with their usual DE razor and blade (Cheapest if possible, with allowances for comfort), and an economy minded (I'm thinking, oh, Col.Conks or similar) soap or cream.
Ideally, we have a large enough number in each group so that we can ignore the differences in how often blades are changed, how often the members shave, and how much soap/cream they use. Participants keep track of the cost of their lather producing items separately from their blade/cartridge items.
Participants also collect the following discarded items and store them for a later count. The items should be tossed into cardboard boxes separately:
Goop-cans, disposable razors, cartridges, discarded soap bowls (Bowls suitable for re-use with a refill or different soap are not included in this count, and I don't know if any 'economy minded' soaps use these), cream tubes, and DE blades. If we decide to include DE blade packaging, it would be preferable to keep track of plastic and paper packaging separately.
We run the study for a month or two, and then we tally the results. From here we determine the cost of disposable razors, the cost of cartridges, the cost of DE blades, the cost of canned goo, and the cost of shaving soap/cream. By counting the number of disposed cartridges, razors, and blades, we can estimate the amount of material sent to the landfill by each type of shaving, and also estimate the landfill volume used by each type.
2. Using the results of the study, we develop a website (Covered later) and print fliers for distribution. The fliers should be of two types, one which addresses the cost appeal, and another which addresses the environmental appeal. These fliers should be developed in an electronic media form so that college-going B&B members can print them out at their own location, and place them around campus for all to see. The fliers should serve to show the potential impact of switching to DE shaving, and direct users to visit the page where more information can be presented.
The website should be a subpage of Badgerandblade.com with a short and simple HTML address. On this page we re-cap the benefits of DE shaving, offer more information about DE shaving, and some simple how-to type information. Mantic's Youtube videos (Or some new, custom made ones?) should be linked here as they provide LOTS of good information.
3. Starter kits...Ideally we could offer potential new users all that they need to buy in one purchase. I think the best way to do this would be to cooperate with a website like westcoastshaving.com or another provider. the starter kit should include an inexpensive (Weishi?) DE razor, an inexpensive brush (Tweezerman Badger brush?), an inexpensive soap and/or cream (Col.Conk, Derby, Arko?), and one or two brands of blades (Anything but Dorco...I'm concerned that the somewhat silly name might be a turn-off. I'm thinking maybe a few boxes of Personna red-packs and perhaps a few Wilkinsons or some such? Derby?).
This eliminates some hassle, and if we can keep costs down makes the start-up cost a bit less painful.
Sorry for the long rant! Curious to hear your input!
I, personally, would never have adopted DE wet-shaving had I not stumbled across his old Gillette Tech and brush in his medicine cabinet years back. With several generations of children now born into the cartridge era, they may not have grandparents who used a traditional razor.
As canned goop and high capacity multi blade assault razors become more popular in countries that are still mainly DE/SE/Injector/StraightRazor countries, and holdouts of the DE/etc generation pass on or give up the old style razors, the market for traditional wet-shaving items grows ever smaller.
As the market shrinks, and production volume decreases, prices go up. As prices go up, sales go down, and manufacturers cease operation. Eventually, this leads to the shavepocalypse...
Objective:
Prevent the shavepocalypse.
Method:
Increase number of consumers for wet-shaving products.
Execution:
As I see it, theres a few main appeals to going to DE shaving. We have the lure of a better quality shave, the appeal of lower costs, environmental concerns, and the retro/nostalgia attraction. Given the current economic money crunch, now seems like a good time to focus on cost, but the environmental impact is good at any time.
In order to increase the number of consumers, we have to inform them, and attract them. I can't help but think that the college campus setting is a great place to push the cost and environmental points. I would suggest that we do the following:
1. Launch our own non-scientific study using board members. We divide into three groups. One group shaves with the most economical (Or at least, the cheapest they can stand) disposable razors and canned goop, the second group will use a cartridge razor system and canned good, the third group shaves with their usual DE razor and blade (Cheapest if possible, with allowances for comfort), and an economy minded (I'm thinking, oh, Col.Conks or similar) soap or cream.
Ideally, we have a large enough number in each group so that we can ignore the differences in how often blades are changed, how often the members shave, and how much soap/cream they use. Participants keep track of the cost of their lather producing items separately from their blade/cartridge items.
Participants also collect the following discarded items and store them for a later count. The items should be tossed into cardboard boxes separately:
Goop-cans, disposable razors, cartridges, discarded soap bowls (Bowls suitable for re-use with a refill or different soap are not included in this count, and I don't know if any 'economy minded' soaps use these), cream tubes, and DE blades. If we decide to include DE blade packaging, it would be preferable to keep track of plastic and paper packaging separately.
We run the study for a month or two, and then we tally the results. From here we determine the cost of disposable razors, the cost of cartridges, the cost of DE blades, the cost of canned goo, and the cost of shaving soap/cream. By counting the number of disposed cartridges, razors, and blades, we can estimate the amount of material sent to the landfill by each type of shaving, and also estimate the landfill volume used by each type.
2. Using the results of the study, we develop a website (Covered later) and print fliers for distribution. The fliers should be of two types, one which addresses the cost appeal, and another which addresses the environmental appeal. These fliers should be developed in an electronic media form so that college-going B&B members can print them out at their own location, and place them around campus for all to see. The fliers should serve to show the potential impact of switching to DE shaving, and direct users to visit the page where more information can be presented.
The website should be a subpage of Badgerandblade.com with a short and simple HTML address. On this page we re-cap the benefits of DE shaving, offer more information about DE shaving, and some simple how-to type information. Mantic's Youtube videos (Or some new, custom made ones?) should be linked here as they provide LOTS of good information.
3. Starter kits...Ideally we could offer potential new users all that they need to buy in one purchase. I think the best way to do this would be to cooperate with a website like westcoastshaving.com or another provider. the starter kit should include an inexpensive (Weishi?) DE razor, an inexpensive brush (Tweezerman Badger brush?), an inexpensive soap and/or cream (Col.Conk, Derby, Arko?), and one or two brands of blades (Anything but Dorco...I'm concerned that the somewhat silly name might be a turn-off. I'm thinking maybe a few boxes of Personna red-packs and perhaps a few Wilkinsons or some such? Derby?).
This eliminates some hassle, and if we can keep costs down makes the start-up cost a bit less painful.
Sorry for the long rant! Curious to hear your input!
