Will King of King of Shaves

Will King founded male grooming brand King of Shaves in 1993, developing a range of products to give a smooth, close and burn free shave. Since those early days, when Harrods first stocked the shaving oil, King of Shaves is now the second largest brand of shaving software in the UK and its products are sold in over 30000 stores worldwide. The company is expected to have a turnover of around £200m by 2012. Follow Will @kingofshaves on Twitter as well as on the recently launched The Daily Shave.

WILL'S FAVOURITE SITES

The Cool Hunter - It's vital we keep at the cutting edge of design & trends at King of Shaves, keeping our ‘creative velocity' high.  Imbuing King of Shaves with the look & feel of ‘current' individuality is key, and I often refer to The Cool Hunter, a site founded by Bill Tikos in 2004.  This is the world's most read culture and design website, regarded as an authority on ‘all things creative'.  I refer to the site half a dozen times a month, to see what's out there, what's coming and what may be relevant to our innovative men's grooming brand.

Lovemarks - In 2005, King of Shaves was nominated as a ‘Lovemark'.  And it remains in the Top 100 world-wide. What's a Lovemark? Well, it's an acknowledgement by consumers that delivers beyond the expectation of great performance.  Its something that consumers get first time - and expect that same result to be delivered over and over again. Part of global ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, I often take a look at what the latest Lovemarks are, and to check how we're doing. After all, if your brand loses the ‘mark of love' with its target audience, you may be in trouble. Check the site out, and see if YOUR favourite brand is 'LoveMarked.'

Smarta - Founded by Shaa Wasmund and Dragons' Den star Theo Paphitis, Smarta is the ‘smarta' way to get knowledge, information, advice and networking guidance for anyone starting up or running a small business, providing independent entrepreneur led advice.  I was one of the first entrepreneurs to be asked to shoot a video about starting King of Shaves on it a few years back, and its since gone from strength to strength. Check it out!

Mashable - It used to be the ‘Word of Mouth' that powered awareness of ‘new', now it's all about the ‘Word of Mouse' as powered by the advent of Social Media hubs including Facebook, Twitter & YouTube.  Mashable is the ‘go to' resource for what's happening in the ‘iNstant' world of today, to keep up with developing #socmed trends and to understand how to leverage your company, brand, product or service via these digitally convergent communities.  15 years ago it was all about TLD's (Top Level Domains - we own shave.com for example).  But now it's about Consumer Content & Chat on these channels.  Follow Mashable via Twitter, and use Twilert to aggregate tweets on subject topics that are relevant for your business!

SuperYacht Design - It'd be a very boring world if it was all about work - I love sailing as much as I love shaving, and have my own ideas about what's going to happen in the super yacht & sailing sector, a pastime enjoyed by many successful entrepreneurs, from Charles Dunstone (Carphone Warehouse), Tom Perkins (Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers - Silicon Valley VC) and Larry Ellison (Oracle).  I regularly check out (and subscribe to) SuperYachtDesign as maybe, one day, I'll be able to sail off into the sunset on my BatYacht concept yacht.  Dream and Enjoy!

30 November 2010