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I Knew This Would Happen!

by John J. Fanning

I knew this would happen!

The first time I laid eyes on the Gillette, Mach 3 razor with its three blades, I said to myself, "Self, it's just a matter of time before we see razors with a dozen blades!"

We are now nearly halfway to fulfilling that prediction.

The Gillette Company has decided to introduce a five-bladed razor called the "Fusion". The reasoning behind Gillette's decision to introduce this breakthrough in facial hair technology is two-fold. First, Gillette's chief competitor, the Schick Company, introduced a four-bladed razor they named the "Quatro". The second reason is because both Schick and Gillette believe that men are stupid.

Remember back when the first two-bladed razors were introduced? Remember how they showed commercials with slick animations depicting that lone whisker being clipped by the first blade only to have its lower portion spring back to be chopped at the root by the second blade? When the three-bladed razors came out they never showed such animations during their commercials. That's because it wouldn't make any sense. You can't have a whisker that has been cropped into your pores by two blades, just "reappearing" to be sliced a third time. So instead of trying to make sense of a third blade to consumers, Gillette hit on a marketing strategy that would appeal to American males - they gave their three-bladed razor a neat name that alluded to slick, fast cars - the "Mach 3"! So their advertising message was something like - "You may have to drive around in that family mini-van, but you can still drive a Mach 3 across your face everyday"! That seems to be the only thing that makes sense in giving it the name. Gillette wasn't suggesting that you move the razor across your face at a speed of 2,284 miles per hour. At least I hope not. If you tried something like that, you would end up with your nose lying in the bathroom sink!

Despite the fact that three blades on a razor makes no sense at all from a practical perspective, the Mach 3 razor has been very successful for Gillette. I guess that's why Schick upped the ante by adding a fourth blade. But Schick blew the advantage by choosing a lame name for their razor. I mean, "Quatro" doesn't make any sense at all. Quatro in Spanish means "four". But can you name me anything fast and slick that comes from Spain? Did Schick's marketing gurus really think that American males would want to wake up every morning and use a razor that reminds them of Charo?

Maybe Schick was thinking of the Italian word for "four" but just misspelled it. Or maybe they were thinking of the Quattro car.

If that was the case, someone should have pointed out that the car is made by Audi and is only marginally more appealing than a mini-van. Frankly, I think Schick's marketing people just decided that if consumers were stupid enough to buy into the whole four-blade scheme they would be too stupid to realize the name doesn't make much sense.

Schick and Gillette don't just compete in the razor business. Schick owns the Energizer battery brand and Gillette owns the Duracell battery brand. I think this is one reason why Schick and Gillette's marketing people came up with the idea of putting a battery into their razors. You can buy a version of the Mach 3 or Quattro razor that vibrates. How did they market it? They told consumers that the vibrating head "stimulates the face, causing whiskers to stand up to be cut down".

Hmmm, let's see now ... Stimulation followed by arousal followed by getting your legs lopped off. Gee, am I the only married, American male that thinks these razors might just represent life?

As clever as these two companies are at marketing, they still seem to have the ability to do really stupid things. For example, some years ago Gillette teamed with pharmaceutical giant Bristol Meyers to develop a topical cream that would inhibit the growth of facial hair. I don't know what possibly could have been going through the mind of the Gillette executive who thought that one up.

" Gee, I wonder if we can develop a product that could put us out of business?"

In any case, they were successful in developing a product and they called it "Vaniqa". Somewhere along the line though, the Gillette people sobered up and the product was never submitted for testing on men. So today, only women may purchase Vaniqa. And, ironically, the one product the company developed since the original safety razor, with the potential to have a real discernable benefit to male grooming, was quickly turned over by Gillette to Women's First Health, Inc., with the view that it should never appear in the male side of a medicine cabinet.

You have to admire these companies though, for the way they market their products. Today, you can purchase one of their latest razors along with two blade cartridges for around nine bucks. When you go to buy additional blades you wind up paying around fourteen bucks for just four cartridges. Both companies usually give away razors when they first market them. Schick sent me a new Quatro when it first came out. I remember trying it and feeling that maneuvering the massive head was something akin to running a garden rake over my face. I asked my wife if she wanted it and all she said was "ick". So I guess American women don't get the whole multi-blade thing either.

By keeping the price down on the purchase of the razor, Gillette and Schick keep them as the perfect "stocking stuffer" for the holiday season or in the "impulsive buy" range for guys looking for that certain something that might lure that "stunner" back to their pad. Just like the dealer on the corner, they hope you like the taste and get hooked for the long haul. But unlike the dealer's wares, there isn't any 12-step program for guys who
get fed up with shelling out more and more money, for more and more blades, that do less and less when it comes to delivering a decent shave.

As absurd as the blade war has become between Schick and Gillette, the stakes in that war are even more preposterous. Over $5 billion is brought in by the two companies on shaving products each year. When you consider that Schick and Gillette only control about 30 percent of the American market in shaving products, you can see that there is big money in man fur.

There isn't much men can do to put an end to this stupidity. At the rate things are going, we are all destined to be dragging more steel over our face than a John Deere hauls across a potato farm. Maybe we can at least take some solace in the fact that every now and then we can pop for a really decent shave from a barber with a sweet smelling hot towel and a great straight razor.

Let's just hope the barber keeps the speed of the shave under Mach 1.

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