Venus Rising

Its code name was 226.

That was back in 1998, when Gillette Co. was setting Mach3 razors on store shelves and loosing fighter planes in TV spots. Now — 36 months, $300 million, and hundreds of confidentiality agreements later — its name is Venus. The brand launches globally this month with $150 million in marketing support, $100 million of that in North America alone. Venus is important to Gillette for three reasons. It’s the company’s first-ever global launch, hitting 29 countries simultaneously (with rollouts in the southern hemisphere timed to summer). Gillette usually staggers product launches: The 1992 debut of Sensor for Women took two years to go global.

The product is also a stand-alone brand, not a “Mach3 for Women” in Gillette’s usual practice of extending men’s brands to distaff consumers (à la Sensor for Women and Sensor Excel for Women). Both factors require a whole new approach to marketing, especially for retail sell-in.

Lastly, Venus is Gillette’s first major effort under ceo Jim Kilts, who joined in February to replace Michael Hawley after the latter’s October resignation (at the board of directors’ request). Wall Street is watching Gillette warily these days, and Venus is center stage.

New products are crucial to Gillette. Forty percent of sales come from products less than five years old. The company plans a record 30 launches this year (Venus is the biggest), and bumped up R&D spending for future years to keep the pipeline busy.

Razors and blades are Gillette’s biggest business, accounting for 35 percent of company sales. It’s the No. 1 player in the $1.6 billion razors, blades, and disposables industry. Razor sales fell seven percent in 2000 to $105 million, outpacing category decline of six percent. But blade sales rose six percent to $743 million for the year, besting category growth of 4.6 percent, according to Information Resources, Inc. Among the top brands, Mach3 sales dropped 10 percent to $53 million, but sales of Sensor Excel for Women jumped 30 percent to $22 million, IRI reports.

Starting from Scratch

Like any major packaged goods company, Gillette has a well-defined process for new products. At shaving labs near its Boston headquarters, research panelists stop in before work to shave with prototype razors. Task force members travel across the world every six weeks or so to compare notes. After three years getting details right in 29 countries and dozens of languages, Gillette starts speaking to women worldwide this month.

“We do our homework, which takes time, but ensures that what we bring to market makes sense for consumers and is consistently represented,” says business manager Michelle Mulcahey.

Gillette introduced Venus to its sales force in late October, then launched GilletteVenus.com in November. The consumer site gears up this month with a Celebrate the Goddess sweeps offering trips with one-on-one lessons from “goddesses” of sports, cooking, fashion, and music. TV, print, and P-O-P are themed “Reveal the goddess in you.”

Meanwhile, a Venus in Motion mobile tour visits 16 markets with an “aroma oasis,” waterfall, and museum-like product gallery. Six computers let visitors enter the sweeps or e-mail photos of themselves to friends. Gillette expects the two 18-wheelers to host one million women ages 13 to 24 at college campuses, concerts, and summer events.

“It’s hard sometimes for us to say ‘Venus’ now,” says business director Frank Brophy, who spearheaded the launch. “It goes by a code name for so long that the people who work on it struggle to say the brand name when it’s finally out in the open.”

New brands don’t come along every day. When a global category leader like Gillette consents to a peek backstage, it’s worth taking a tour.

Pre-1998

Venus’s triple-blade technology comes from Gillette’s R&D labs in the U.K., borrows from Mach3 (which went to market backed by $750 million), Sensor, and Sensor Excel for Women, and incorporates detailed consumer research gathered through shaving panels, calls to a toll-free number, and home visits that the team jokingly calls “The Blair Witch Project.”

“We went into women’s showers, literally,” says business manager Liz Tuohey. “The interviewer was the cameraman, so it was like ‘Blair Witch.’

“We made an appointment to see women’s bathrooms and talk to them about shaving. The bathroom would always be sparkling clean and we’d say, ‘Show us where you keep your razor’ and they’d point it out in the shower. We’d say, ‘Where do you keep your blades?’ and they’d go, ‘Oh! Er, ah,’ and show us this mess of a drawer, all jumbled up. Eight times out of 10 they’d say, ‘I must be out of cartridges.’ So we coined the phrase ‘out of sight, out of mind, out of stock.’ That led to development of a new storage case “to keep everything in sight, in mind, in stock.”

R&D hands off its cartridge to the Engineering Implementation Group, which plans manufacturing and moves it to a shaving technologies lab in Boston. Now called “oval-framed Manx” (the new code name “has something to do with the Isle of Man,” Brophy recalls), it goes to industrial designer Jill Shurtleff, whose team designs a handle and cushioned head. The product goes into consumer test in “Excel Aqua” and does so well some insiders press to launch it as-is. But the design team wants colors that are more cosmetic, like sapphire.

Both Sensor and Sensor Excel for Women “came on the heels of a male launch,” Brophy says. “We tried to combine the two and have the cosmetic appeal of Sensor with the functionality of Sensor Excel.”

1998

Gillette refines the razor, case, and blade dispenser, and begins naming the product.

Focus groups test the final design. The oval cartridge looks so soft that moderators have to remind users not to touch the sharp blades. Women are asked to demonstrate how they change blades; some pull them out by hand, which alarms Brophy. Most groups say it’s inconvenient to change blades — they end up jumping out of the shower dripping wet. North Americans store razors in the bath and blades elsewhere; Europeans keep them both somewhere else, Tuohey says.

Gillette develops a case to store it all in the shower, keeping individually wrapped blades dry and close at hand. Adhesive strips let users hang the case, away from the clutter of shampoo bottles and out of kids’ reach. Suction cups are tested for six weeks, but they fall down 80 percent of the time.

The development team plans to brand blade packages, too. “One of the biggest complaints on our toll-free number is that people buy the wrong replacement blades because there’s no branding on the case once it’s out of the package,” Tuohey explains.

Naming begins with Wallace Church, the New York City branding agency that worked on Mach3, and with Tonic, a brand strategy consultancy which has just spun off from Wallace Church. Creating a brand name is new for the women’s division. But “Mach3 for Women” won’t cut it, Brophy says: “Part of our credo was Mach3 with a big red circle and a line through it, saying, ‘This is not Mach3 in drag.’”

One of the team’s inspirations is Botticelli’s classic painting, Birth of Venus. There’s some discussion that consumers might not know the original Roman goddess of beauty and love. One source assures the team, “If you have a product called Venus, after a while, that’s what people will think Venus is.”

Colleagues — who expect Mach3 in drag — start getting curious about 226. “They didn’t get as excited as they would on a male technology” until they saw it was very different from the Mach3, Brophy says. No one is told the name, though.

“We use confidentiality as a bit of a carrot. It builds anticipation,” Mulcahey says. “It’s tough to balance being secretive and bringing people in under the tent. We’re trying to manage relationships so [agencies and vendors] feel like a partner, yet we’re keeping aspects from them. It works, but it’s unique.”

First-Half 1999

Once the name is set, the team develops its creative platform: “Every woman can feel like a goddess,” with “goddess” defined as “modern, not ancient; confident, but not arrogant; elegant but never frilly,” Brophy says.

“We didn’t want Roman and Greek references,” he adds. “If test ads were too serious, women’s response was, ‘A goddess talking to me about shaving? Give me a break.’” Lighthearted ads play better.

Pamela Parisi’s graphics team starts two years of work on design for packaging and displays, with an assist from Wallace Church. Gillette is open-minded. “We come up with concepts and they say, ‘We’ll see if we can do it,’” says principal Stan Church. “They don’t tie our hands back.”

The consultant creates a new typeface — just the five letters, including the V with a 3 built in — and Gillette trademarks it. Tests prove the 3 is subtle enough that consumers won’t think it’s part of the name. “We didn’t think it was very feminine to call it Venus 3,” Brophy jokes. Adds Tuohey: “People would wonder what happened to Venus 1 and 2.”

For secrecy, Gillette uses the word “Verse,” because it takes up the same space as “Venus” with similar letters. The team also takes photos demonstrating various product features, and starts compiling an online fact book with detailed specs for all marketing communications.

Second-Half 1999

Agencies are assigned for advertising, Internet, and P-O-P. A task force led by Tuohey begins developing P-O-P to be used globally — another first for Gillette. (U.S. markets will get additional display designs.) The deadline: the company’s October global sales meeting.

Gillette briefs shops on Venus’s core branding and consumer insights. Agency of record BBDO, New York City, handles all advertising creative and most media buys, with McCann-Erickson Worldwide, also New York City, handling some overseas buys and ad translations. Digitas, Boston, takes on Internet marketing and the mobile tour. Porter Novelli, New York City, spearheads p.r. Advertising Display Co., Lyndhurst, NJ, and Diam International, Leicestershire, U.K., partner to pitch and win the P-O-P business against three other teams (all composed of two display companies).

BBDO starts work on creative, using Mach3 imagery as its benchmark. “Fighter jets were great for a male audience. We had to find something that would work equally well for women,” Brophy says.

The agency has tested ways to communicate Venus’s features. Now “we wanted to add emotional territory,” says BBDO senior vp-account director Lynn Power. “‘Goddess’ is a big idea. Some people thought it was too big, but we talked about ways to make it approachable,” Power says. “It had to include all women and be lighthearted.”

Meanwhile, P-O-P is underway. Past launches had a model design that regional teams modified to suit their own markets. As Gillette’s first global design, the Venus displays “had to find the lowest common denominator” of specs to suit all retailers in all countries, Tuohey says. Details like peg holes at the top of the pack get scrutinized (pegs in Europe differ from the U.S.). It’s exacting work, but having a single design “really helps keep the costs down,” she says.

January-February 2000

Time for translations, which must be done now so sales reps can have local-language packs in October. Gillette sets up a “translation war room” in London with designers, translators, and lawyers to hammer out package and display language, then make sure it fits the layout and passes legal muster. It takes about one day per package, with as many as three languages on-pack. “We actually lock everyone in,” Mulcahey says, only half-kidding. “No one leaves until we agree this is the right language.”

“The ideas of ‘soft, protective cushions’ and ‘reveal the goddess in you’ [carry] significant language nuances,” Mulcahey adds. “We’d say it in English and have them express back the core idea in their native language.”

Questions arise over whether to capitalize “goddess” or not. Gillette opts for lower-case to skirt cultural or religious controversy.

BBDO shows a half-dozen ideas for TV, including a beach scene using the oft-recorded song, “Venus.” That’s the favorite.

The U.S. commercial operations group brainstorms the mobile tour — yet another first for Gillette, and a tough sell. “We really had to justify the ROI,” says marketing manager Matt Wohl. “We had to think about this differently than the male business. We needed something to go out and find our demographic. We couldn’t sit and wait for them.”

March

The global business management group writes guidelines for Gillette’s six regional teams worldwide, which set their own promotions. The guidelines stress premium positioning: value-added offers only, no price discounting. There will be no sampling the first year — the plan is to let ads drive awareness to drive trial.

April

A major agency summit brings together BBDO, Porter Novelli, Wallace Church, Digitas, and P-O-P shops globally to compare notes and begin production. BBDO shows the beach spot; results from consumer tests will come in two months. Shops get a product demo and lifestyle photos, and are prepped for an intranet catalog of production tools. Gillette prioritizes marketing elements: ads, displays, Internet, p.r.

There’s special emphasis on P-O-P. Agencies from all regions get detailed graphics standards including logos, fonts, colors, and demo photos. Nine months from now, Tuohey will praise the consistency of work worldwide. “These agencies all got the same brief and [their separate work] all fits perfectly with the brand.”

Niven, Chicago, designs cosmetics-quality permanent displays for destination aisles like hosiery, skin care, and hair care. These secondary displays are crucial to the overall strategy.

Two task forces — the core 226 group and another one for displays — begin meeting every six weeks until October to compare notes. The display task force represents retailer specs to the global launch team. Reps from smaller markets such as Eastern Europe borrow P-O-P ideas — and agencies — from larger neighbors.

June-August

Animatics of the beach spot test well. BBDO shoots the commercial in Tahiti rather than risk hurricanes in the Caribbean.

Digitas sets strategy for the GilletteVenus.com Web site and other online marketing including e-mail, site sponsorships, and banner ads. Content needs to serve promotions and e-commerce partnerships. “The challenge is creating interest around a low-interest packaged goods category,” says Digitas vp-marketing director Wendy Duncan. “A cool sweeps can reinforce branding even if consumers don’t click banner ads to enter, and can engage them if they do.”

The agency fleshes out the prizes. Entrants choose from four trips: surf lesson in Hawaii, cooking course in Tuscany, shopping spree with a personal shopper, or fashion makeover and VIP pass to a major music awards ceremony. (The winner can change her mind later.)

Digitas also maps out the site, which includes an “Events” link listing regional promotions. It will spend September through November building the site, and in October pursue tie-ins with teen sites and e-tailers. The shop burns CDs of its creative for Internet agencies worldwide to adapt for local markets. “Doing it in template fashion gives all sites the same look and feel,” Brophy says.

The Internet “has been an afterthought in other programs just because of the status of technology,” Tuohey says. The site has three jobs: build awareness, interact with consumers, and serve as global template for 15 regional sites that will go live March 2001.

The tour trucks, dubbed “Immersionmobiles,” are designed. Visitors will get an eight-minute sensory experience with aromatherapy, a “hand wall” of holes filled with different textures, and a working waterfall. Digitas will spend third quarter staffing and scheduling the tour, tapping BBDO’s media buys for magazine-related events. Ads will carry their own geography’s URL.

Meanwhile, the prototype P-O-P display begets versions to suit different retailers, from the standard 48-count floor stand to a huge hypermarket display in France. Those, plus new package and product photos, high-resolution downloads of displays, and clips from the TV spot are added to the online fact book. The password-protected intranet gives marketers in all regions instant access to images, and lets them order materials.

Before Venus, Gillette used fact books only as brand management tools. “This is the first time any fact book, especially an electronic one, existed before the product was in market,” Mulcahey says. Future launch teams will use this model to become more efficient.

Secrecy continues. Display vendors work with structure parameters and learn the product name only when it’s time to set graphics. Presses are surrounded by security staff during printing. Materials go into storage until after the November press briefing, after which they’re shredded. “It was not safe to presume a member of the team knew everything,” Mulcahey says.

October 19

Hawley steps down as chairman-ceo. President and chief operating officer Edward DeGraan is named acting chief.

“In spite of what happens in top management, this product still does what it does for consumers and it will still build the business,” Mulcahey asserts.

The team’s mantra of “What’s right for the brand?” helps garner senior management support and weather the change. “The people who remained were very supportive,” Mulcahey explains. “Frank [Brophy] spent a ton of time with senior management securing their commitment two years [and] one year in front of launch, reintroducing them as new things arose so they were really involved. That’s the key to maintaining commitment regardless of what changes take place.”

October 26

Launch Day. The team will unveil Venus to 1,300 sales reps and key retailers in Las Vegas. Fewer than 50 people know the whole program, and only 200 or so have pieces of it. Trucks carrying materials to the meeting are monitored constantly by global positioning systems. “You may think this is a little like talking into your shoe, but it’s a core element of the [launch] program,” Mulcahey says.

The team has one hour, and opens with a parody TV spot dubbed “Machette” that shows a blonde flying a hot-pink fighter jet. She shaves; a hunky pilot enters the hangar and says, “Super shave, fly girl.” She gives an exaggerated two thumbs-up. Tagline: “The best a woman can get.”

Within 30 seconds, the sales force is convinced this isn’t Mach3 for Chicks. “They presumed it was just going to be another male technology under the guise of a subordinate, female brand,” Mulcahey says. “‘Machette’ helped wipe that slate clean.”

Wohl’s team gives a virtual tour of Venus in Motion. The reps cheer. Just a week after Hawley’s resignation, the sales force is eager for something big. “It was an interesting time within Gillette,” Brophy says. “More than ever, we needed some great news. This came at the perfect time.”

In past years, sales reps got new consumer and trade promos to buoy Sensor Excel for Women, so they’re happy to have an entirely new brand. Their marching orders: secure secondary display space and as much retail support as possible for signs at store entrances (“intrigue” pieces) and shaving-aisle ends (“involve”) and on-shelf brochures (“educate”) from Gillette’s creative services group.

At the end of the day, reps find a Venus in a Tiffany-blue box in their hotel rooms. The same presentation case is mailed to hundreds of high-profile women — celebrities, politicians, athletes — a week later as part of the press launch.

November

Venus is unveiled to the business press. The six regional commercial operations teams take over for the global business management team. Six months from sales launch to ship, to balance confidentiality with retailer lead times, is on par for Gillette. (Mach3 took five months.

GilletteVenus.com goes live, collecting e-mail addresses for future follow-up. “We want product information there, but don’t want to tease consumers too far in advance,” Tuohey says.

Digitas is building the two tour trucks and outfitting four Ford Escapes for Venus in Motion. Separately, the agency’s online team gives e-tailers including drugstore.com a chunk of product information to house on their own site, a strategy they like better than linking to GilletteVenus.com. Gillette likes the brand-conscious merchandising.

January-February 2001

Sell-in time. Commercial operations staffers go along on calls to Top 20 accounts. Retailers with clean-store or no-corrugated policies request custom displays. Commitments to secondary displays average two to three extras per store, Wohl says. Most retailers — food, drug, mass, and clubs — are bullish on Venus. “They’re willing to put P-O-P in places they never have before,” Tuohey says. “That unprecedented level of support has made for some interesting negotiations with [P-O-P] vendors.”

Global business management staffers continue ad translations and the launch in Latin America, and begin to plan 2002. They brief the next launch team, sharing their translation process, Web site template, and intranet fact book.

Digitas tests Venus in Motion with a shopping mall crowd of about 100 and a concert crowd of several thousand to finalize logistics and control.

March

Venus ships. Displays go up. Consumer press p.r. begins. It’s the finish line — and the starting gate.

April

Once there’s enough distribution, ads will break — by mid-month at the latest. The online sweepstakes and viral e-mails will begin: Women who give a friend’s address get an extra entry, and the friend gets an invitation to the site. Venus in Motion trucks will hit the road, “following the sun” north from Miami and Dallas, visiting beaches, concerts, campuses, and some store grand openings along both coasts. (The four SUVs make forays into landlocked markets.)

Gillette will track volume, sales, and consumer response to each marketing element. “We’re very interested to see which elements are driving which aspects of the predicted success,” Tuohey says. Surveys randomly seeded in a small percentage of packages will supply more consumer information.

Brophy and the team will start work on the next generation; Mulcahey and Tuohey will stay with Venus as it joins Gillette’s portfolio.

Venus should do well, Mulcahey says, because of the timing: Right now, the percentage of consumers who use razor-and-blade vs. disposable is the same as when Sensor launched. Like Sensor, Venus performs far better than disposables. “Those market dynamics indicate the shift [to Venus] will be revolutionary, not evolutionary,” Mulcahey predicts.

Would you expect anything less from a goddess?