吉列刀片的寿命之谜

    吉列市场份额减少的另外一个原因，是复古剃须刀的兴起。男士刊物一直提倡读者，拿出爷爷辈使用的老式剃须刀来用。老式剃须刀只用一个刀片，并且价格低廉。男士博客“男性艺术”（The Art of Manliness）创始人布雷特•麦凯就在用上世纪60年代爷爷用过的舒适牌安全剃须刀，他表示：“首先，用直形剃刀刮胡子，让你看起来充满男人味。其次，老式剃须刀更有价值。你买一个剃须刀，只要保持锋利就可以了，不必再买什么刀头。”

    当然，复古剃须刀没有可靠的市场份额数据，但《GQ》杂志、《时尚先生》杂志（Esquire）和《Details》杂志都介绍了该类产品，而且，在线论坛 Badger & Blade上有超过45,000名会员，每天都会发帖讨论用一个世纪以前的剃须刀刮胡子的话题。

    此外，新竞争对手也在逐步侵蚀吉列的市场份额。最近，一家订阅服务网站“一美元剃须刀俱乐部”（Dollar Shave Club）横空出世，该网站向邮购替代刀片的用户每月最低只收取1美元。从凯鹏华盈（Kleiner Perkins）和安德森•霍洛维茨等硅谷风投那里获得100万美元投资后，今年3月份，一美元剃须刀俱乐部在YouTube上发布了一则有趣的广告，对吉列代言人、网坛天王费德勒进行抨击。但该网站的联合创始人、33岁的麦克•杜宾却表示，他们并不希望如同挑战巨人歌利亚的大卫一般，与吉列闹到不死不休。不过他说道：“那些大公司是否做好了接受抨击的准备？答案是肯定的。”麦克•杜宾曾在美国国家广播公司（NBC）任职，去年，他在洛杉矶一个数字创业孵化器内创办了Dollar Shave Club。

    吉列广告把价值关注（一个刀头可使用五周）和高级剃须刀头混为一谈，是否会有风险？这一点当然会存在。但吉列在研发上投入了数十亿美元，而且每年投入数百万美元研究用户行为，所以，这一品牌有足够的理由在行业中占得先机。布莱恩特大学教授迈克尔•罗伯托表示：“以前，我们快速丢弃刀片的文化，让吉列受益匪浅，而现在，他们又告诉消费者，我们不必那么快就替换刀片。直觉告诉我，这家公司非常清楚他们正在做什么。”

    译者：阿龙/汪皓

    Gillette's market share losses also come as it battles a retro razor craze. Men's publications have urged readers to pull out their grandfather's old razors, which use a single, inexpensive razor blade. "First off, shaving with straight razors makes you seem like a badass," says Brett McKay, who founded men's blog The Art of Manliness and shaves with his grandfather's 1960s Schick safety razor. "But second, it's a better value. You buy a razor once, you keep it sharp, and you never have to buy cartridges again."

    Reliable market share numbers don't exist for retro shavers, but not only have GQ, Esquire, and Details featured the products, more than 45,000 members of the online forum Badger & Blade post daily about shaving with century-old razors.

    New competitors have also tried to chip away at Gillette. The upstart subscription service Dollar Shave Club charges as little as $1 a month for mail-order replacement blades. After winning $1 million in venture capital from Silicon Valley hotshots like Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz, Dollar Shave grabbed national headlines with its amusing YouTube ad in March that takes a swipe at Gillette spokesman Roger Federer. Co-founder Mike Dubin, 33, doesn't want to encourage a David vs. Goliath story. But the former NBC page who started Dollar Shave Club last year in a Los Angeles digital incubator does say, "Are the big guys ripe for taking a couple potshots at? Yeah."

    Does Gillette risk mixing messages by emphasizing value (one cartridge last five weeks!) with premium razors? Of course. But between the billions it spent on R&D and the millions it spends each year studying consumer behavior, the brand should come out ahead. "They benefited from a culture where we were pretty quick to dispose blades, now they're saying we don't have to," Bryant University professor Michael Roberto says. "My gut says these folks know what they're doing."