Hence I received a stream of emails from the London PR company representing the Hydro inviting me to an event: “I was just wondering if you would like to join us for our special breakfast on Monday to unveil the biggest launch in Wilkinson Sword’s history. If they actually read my blog they would realise that I see them as being the dark side, which might dampen their enthusiasm. All of which means that the PR companies employed by Procter & Gamble and Energizer have me as a target as a “shaving blogger”. Rightly so, my Bruce on Games blog had over 100,000 readers a month, so reached an audience larger than a lot of specialist print magazines do. And these days that means bloggers as well as conventional print journalists. Part of the marketing billions is spent with PR companies, whose job it is to reach people who write in the media. Marketing is far more important than the product with these razors. This must cost them many millions every year in lost marketing synergies and in my opinion epitomises why they are number two and are likely to remain that way. In some places it is a Schick and in some places a Wilkinson Sword. Inexplicably they sell this under two different brand names in different sales territories. So now, in the patent cycle, the time has come for Energizer to try and sell us more new features in a brand new system razor, this one they are calling the Hydro. It just doesn’t have the marketing billions behind it. Yet the DE razor is both hugely better and hugely cheaper. In the West they are far more popular than the double edged (DE) safety razors that this blog is about. Of course these marketing people are massively successful (rivalled only be De Beers and the global diamond monopoly) and many hundreds of millions of men around the world are perfectly happy to pay enormous prices on an ongoing basis for these patent protected system razor blade cartridges. Then their marketing people have to convince us that the new patented ideas are worthwhile. But patents run out, so each of these companies is forced to bring out a succession of new models with new patents in them. These patents give these big global companies monopolies in supplying the very expensive blade cartridges needed for their razors. The two big global system razor companies, Procter & Gamble (Gillette) and Energizer (Schick and Wilkinson Sword) make their huge profits by patenting features on their system razors which their marketing people can try and convince us are benefits. But don’t worry, there is some method in my madness. “More than ever before, consumers expect access to exceptional products when they want it, how they want it, without having to sacrifice comfort and protection,” said Adel Mekhail, the Americas vice president of Schick's parent company Edgewell Personal Care, in a statement.Oh no, I can hear you thinking, Bruce has gone over to the dark side. Its new shaving club service also offers a new blade, the Schick "Hydro Connect," that fits on Gillette's handles for less than Gillette's product. That's not all slick Schick has up its sleeves. "Get Schick with a click," it beckoned the stubble-ridden masses. On Wednesday, Schick started accepting subscriptions to its new shave plan. So when Gillette announced earlier this month that it was revamping its razor subscription service, it was only a matter of time before Schick would follow with its own announcement. That alone was complicated enough, but the emergence of popular subscription-model startups like Dollar Shave Club and Harry's only made things harder for Schick. It's not easy being "the Pepsi of razors." Just ask Schick, which has long stood in the five-o-clock shadow of razor giant Gillette.
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