Let me begin by saying that I am a Gillette user. Have been, since the time I could shave. I have always admired the way they went about hacking their own products with newer, better alternatives.
And they weren’t just adding the number of blades to the… well razor blade to develop markets! Here in India, they went back to a single blade razor. That was great thinking and product innovation. I am not sure how well it has done in the market but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was well thought of.
Coming to the Gillette Fusion, we now have 5 + 1 blades. And the +1 is a nice touch.
They have nailed it down very well, the need for the single blade and the users still preferring the Sensor Excels to the Mach 3 – the need to slice off the last man standing, the loner! And, you might almost think that it was the perfect case where a company listens to the consumer and goes back to the drawing board to come up with a product that suits the consumer’s needs. I, for one, believe that they missed out. That they did not take it to the logical end.
Let me explain: The +1 is a trimmer. What would I give to get that +1 is as +.25 and +.25! Instead of the single full length blade, if they could have gone for quarter lengths at the two ends, it would have been the perfect solution!
It might be that there are ‘physical’ structural issues related to half or less than half length blades but I doubt that Gillette couldn’t have solved them. I think they got it wrong by drawing the wrong conclusion or solution to the problem that they had correctly identified. A “would-have-been-great” usability solution gone “mediocre”!
Thoughts?
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