Gillette Portfolio Strategy

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Overview of the Gillette brand

Gillette brand was created by King C. Gillette in 1901 in US when he introduced to the world, what was going to be one of the most important innovations of the century, a disposable razor. In these 115 years, the brand has not only expanded to different regions of the world but also different products for body hair grooming of both men and women. The company introduced first women’s razor in 2001 under a sub brand Venus and four year later in 2005, Gillette was merged into P&G Company and currently operates as its subsidiary. Today it is a leader in the shaving products offering many body care products in its portfolio like razors, shaving creams, skin care products, deodorants and body washes. Gillette’s market success can be attributed to extending and building of its core brands, creating sub brands to reach out to more customers and cobranding to capitalize the opportunities to evolve it brand values and meanings. The products sold under Gillette are under many sub brands like fusion, proglide, mach 3 etc (See Appendix A).

While the Gillette brand promises the best shaving experience a man can get, it has positioned itself as an essence brand with a mission to make the shaving experience more convenient using technology and better performance. The colors used by Gillette show confidence and masculinity in the products and the tagline says “the best a man can get” which conveys the benefits of using Gillette products. The core associations of the Gillette brand identity include its key functional benefits: Hair removal, premium razors, smooth skin, best performance as well as key esteem and emotional benefits such as: Confidence, masculinity, sport, self-esteem and are discussed in detail in Appendix C.

Portfolio Strategy Analysis

By using the five dimensions of brand architecture as discussed by Aaker, the following analysis will evaluate the portfolio strategy of Gillette: Brand Portfolio, portfolio roles, product market context roles, portfolio graphics and portfolio structure (Aaker, 2000). Gillette has a variety of brands under its name like Venus, Duracell batteries, Oral B and Braun appliances. Each one of these brands are for different purposes and hence are given different names. The main Gillette as a brand understands that shaving experience can always be made better for men. The company understands these needs and values and therefore built a product line in order to meet the needs of all the customers. As shown in the table, the original Gillette brand is about “the best a man can get”. It offers products like razor and blades, pre and post shave products, Deodorants and body washes which aim at giving the best shaving experience and compliment the functionality of using a razor and a blade. The different product lines based on the differentiating criteria is discussed in the Appendix A.