Brand: Philips Norelco Cool Skin Shaver w. Nivea
Execution: TV
Link: Not Yet
Target: Irritated Men
Reviewer: David
Rating: ****

Description:
A new product announcment for the “Quintippio Multi-Shave” opens the spot and we find out that it has fifteen blades. Then a puzzled man looks at it, wondering how he is going to shave his face with it. A voiceover says “Everyone’s talking more blades - we’re talking less irritation.” The selling point is an electric shaver that has a pump for dispensing Nivea skin cream as a shaving lubricant and moisturizer. The spot ends with the clam “As close as a blade with less irritation”

What Works:
It is a real treat to see a commercial that is genuinely funny - but which uses humor to serve the advertising strategy and reinforce the brand positioning.

Norelco takes a very good - and well-deserved shot - at both Gillette and Schick for their multi-blade obsession.

Here’s what works

1. Norelco makes the category leader look out of touch - although the end-benefit of “multi-blade” is supposed to be “close shave”, it is not clear that either Gillette or Schick remember this. Gillette’s macho, tech-oriented advertising is so obsessed with the product that it seems to forget the consumer in the process. Schick played a neat trick by out-Gillette-ing Gillette with four blades, but it is not clear that it helped consumers at all.
2. Cool Shave focuses on a relevant, ownable end-benefit - “We’re talking about less irritation” which presumably is a secondary benefit for many users but not owned by any male shaving system. This spot does a great job of using humor, voiceover, visuals and co-branding (with Nivea) to reinforce this end-benefit.
3. Humor reinforces the brand positioning - After watching hoardes of beer and alcohol advertising where the humor seems to change the strategy of the spot rather than working with it, it is refreshing to watch a spot where the humor serves the brand. Showing that Gillette and Schick don’t ‘get it’ with their blade-spawning razors and focusing on a different benefit is worlds more effective than trying to argue that rotary shavers have more blades than multi-blade razors, for example.

It is important to remember that this spot works because it is careful to insert a parity claim against the #1 consumer benefit of “close shave” with the language ‘as close as a blade with less irritation.’ This, combined with the Nivea skin cream gives the permission to believe that the Norelco product will give acceptable perfomance with fewer unwanted side effects.

What Doesn’t:
The delivery system for the lubricant looks a little inelegant in this spot and does make you wonder how it is better than just slathering on some moisturizer and shaving through it. The cooperative promotion with Nivea smacks of salesmanship even as it reinforces the underlying message of ‘less irritation.’

Branding Bottom Line -
Norelco cuts to the quick of the mess that Gillette and Schick have made.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 24th, 2005 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Philips, Norelco. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.