COMMENTARY: Gillette Fusion Performs as Predicted
Issue: Consumers Balk at the High Price of Fusion
Commentary by: David
There is a certain trepidation that a critic feels when challenging a huge brand. Especially when that brand has just been validated by the one of the largest and most successful brand factories. But such was the case last September when we challenged Gillette Fusion and the pricing and product strategy behind this new razor. This month in BusinessWeek, our challenge was validated by Robert Berner and William Symonds.
Our argument in a nutshell was that Gillette had created a monopoly in the shaving business (which had evolved into a minor duopoly when Schick regained some luster with the Quattro) where pricing increases over a decade had far exceeded the innovation delivered to the consumer. For all but the most affluent consumers, the marginal increases in shaving closeness delivered by each successive generation of Gillette razor have been outweighed by hefty price increases in the vicinity of 30%. And don’t try buying in bulk. For years, Gillette has been one of the few companies which reverse prices razor blades, making it more expensive per unit to buy 8 than 4. But inertia and residual brand loyalty kept people coming back and bolstered the stock price, netting former CEO Jim Kilts an absolute fortune when Procter & Gamble acquired Gillette last year.
Now consumers are starting to react. According to Berner & Symonds, sales have been disappointing in spite of a record level of spending behind the brand:
For all that, Citigroup analyst Wendy Nicholson figures that Fusion’s market-share growth has been far weaker than what Gillette saw after the Mach3 and M3Power launches. Mach3’s U.S. market share, excluding Wal-Mart and warehouse-club stores, rose from 6.6% in the launch quarter to 11.7% in the second full quarter, she figures. But Fusion’s has hardly budged, from 10.6% in the launch quarter to 10.8% in the second, she adds. “Given that (the Fusion launch) included two Fusion products, we would have hoped that the initial shares would have been considerably higher,” she writes in a recent report.
From the perspective of this advertising blog, this reaction is nothing more than marketing karma balancing the scales. Gillette took advantage of consumers for too long, increase margin and complicating the product in marginally useful ways. Now consumers are reacting. Unfortunately, many of those who created this mess have already cashed out. We pray that the rest will work hard to add real value to this category.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:12 am
[…] 2. La palabra de moda: Fusion (o justamente lo contrario). Aseguran que hasta 63 marcas estadounidenses emplean la palabra ‘Fusion’, desde Flavia Fusion, Maxtor Fusion, Ford Fusion, Gillette Fusion (un interesante análisis aquí)… Este concepto de ‘dosenuno’ es ya un lugar común. Name Development critica el uso de este término: “in many cases, I don’t think Fusion communicates the benefit to the consumer, nor does the name reflect a unique and ownable brand strategy”. […]
August 11th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Gillete is just screwing over men who absolutely need to shave everyday. Why do I say this? Gee…lets see, they created the Fusion razor and added a few more blades and an extra trimmer…and the result? A HORRIBLE SHAVE!!!
That’s right the fusion sucks, I only use the Mach3…and it is still expensive. just recently Gillete switched the packaging from 4-packs to 5-packs and jacked up the price. The difference in the price was definetely not proportional to the “value” of that one blade. Gillete spends probably 50 cents on a 5 pack and $2 on marketing, and sells the product for $11. This is pathetic…and it definetely is a monopoly because Schick does not pose any competition to the far more advertised Gillette products.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I tried a fusion ( a free sample, fortunately). Worst razor ever - it literally removed nothing from a 3 day beard. Never had that problem with any other blade. I hope they lose a fortune, foisting this crap on the public.
November 30th, 2008 at 4:46 am
I was always under the impression that twin blade razor is better than single bade one and
] . I have noticed that Gillette also has a 5 blade razor. And apparently , this is how Gillette marketing responded to Schiks’s 4 blade razor system. Crazy!! When the
triple bade razor would be something out of the world. Gillette’s advertising make me believe so! Good job Gillette - you guys have been able to fool the world.
I don’t intend to imply here that Gillette makes bad razors - in fact they make good products! All I want to preach here is that all that the Gillette marketing says isn’t correct.
Recollect a bit of elementary physics of “friction” and “interaction of surfaces”, simply put if the area of intersection between two surfaces is increased, friction increases. This is the
reason why wider tyres are safer as they offer better grip on the road. Now extending this simple physics to razors, assuming that we use the same quality of single blade in twin
blade and triple blade razor, the total friction is increased between razor and face for triple blade razor. Hence, keeping other elements in shaving as constant ( shaving foam/gel/cream),
a twin blade razor would be smoother than triple blade. And a single blade razor would be smoother than twin blade !!
Well, many people might argue otherwise with my reasoning. But for most people (Chinese, European) the facial hair growth is not dense and hard . For such people, it is difficult to
tell which razor gives smooth shave. So, they gladly believe what is shown on the Gillette commercials.
Interestingly, a consumer product business like Gillette is driven more by marketing ( nothing wrong in that, they are the people who create super brands! ). However, marketing people
seem to have a blind spot for engineering or I would better say basic science. [This reminds me of an ad that says, ….their product is “light years” ahead of competition….I am sure the marketing guy implies product is very futuristic…but he didn’t know “light years” is unit of distance and not time!!. How ridiculous it would sound..their product is 9.4605284 × 10^12 kilometers ahead of competition
triple blade system feels like a lawn mover on my hard and dense facial hair, what havoc 5 blade razor would do!
January 24th, 2010 at 10:06 am
I have been using the Fusion blades for years now and have been pretty happy with them. I just opened a new pack of blades that I bought two weeks ago at K-Mart and what a shock. The smooth clean cutting has been replaced by a blade that is dragging and feels worse than than the blades I just took off. I even tried a different blade set in the pack same terible feeling and shave. I went back toa n older set I had in my travel kit and was nice and comfortable. My guess is that the new ownership has moved or changed production and given up on quality control. I was really disapointed and am using some shick razors now. Good luck!