Monday, October 6, 2008

Gillette Sharpens Pitch For Expensive Razor

As the economy seems to be pulling toward a recession, customers and consumers are pulling back spending on many of the items that inhabit their daily routines. Gillette, maker of the very common razor blades, is hoping that although many are cutting back, that people will still stay brand loyal by purchasing their blades. On Sunday Proctor and Gamble introduced a new ad campaign that focuses on getting shoppers comfortable with the some-what high prices of the blade replacements. As it stands, the price for 8 of Gillette's replacement blades are on average $25.03, which is considerably high when you compare them to other brands. Gillette's new launch of their Five Blade Fusion has a memorable ad which is trying to show customers how the price of the razors relates to their pocketbooks on a weekly basis. The advertisement as written is:

"In the world of high-performance, what machine can you run for as little as a dollar a week?" an announcer says amid close-up shots of one of the shavers in the line, "Fusion Power," which vibrates via battery. Nascar driver Carl Edwards's reply: "That's money well spent." (The dollar-a-week calculation is based on the price of Gillette's Fusion Power replacement cartridges and average consumption.)

Although this seems to be a tough situation for companies like Gillette who are selling name brand products at a higher price than competitors, they are hopefull that this campaign will stabilize their customer base and furthermore increase their sales.

1 comment:

ak1176 said...

I am interested to see the outcome of the campaign. I personally feel that the prices of Gillette razors are too expensive, especially during an economic slowdown. Why pay $25 for the fusion if you can opt for the Mach3, which is $6 cheaper?