In the summer of 1998 Gillette introduced the Mach 3 razor - a triple-blader. That launch came 27 years (and US$750 million in research and development costs) after the company's previous major innovation, the first-ever twin-blade, the Trac II.
Few male readers will not know that the Mach 3 came
under serious threat from Schick in 2003 with the launch of its innovative Quattro product, which had, um, four blades.
Now, amid extraordinary fanfare, Gillette, recently acquired by Procter & Gamble for almost US$6 billion, has hit back, unveiling its Fusion products this month.
Yes, you guessed it: a five-blade razor range.
I don't know how much R&D went into Fusion, and P&G wishes it probably didn't.
But I am sure it was a cast of thousands of highly-trained razor boffins, and I am sure they examined every possible permutation of razor and chin before coming up with the genius idea: add another blade!
The trouble is, I don't understand why they stopped at five.
If the first blade "shaves you close, and the second closer still", and likewise the third, fourth and fifth, then surely the same would go for a sixth, a seventh - hell, make it an eighth and call it the Octopus? Doesn't each successive innovation make a mockery of the claim that this is "the best a man can get"?
Surely if I stuck six Bic single blades (or three double blades) together with sticky tape and shaved off my Body Shop shaving cream (no scent or anything added), that would be the best a man could get currently, on the grounds that sooner or later Gillette or Schick (is Wilkinson Sword still around?) is going to launch a six-blader anyway?
So, come the new year, once we mere mortals are allowed to slash at our faces with "the first wet razor to contain a microchip" (automated or not is the choice), will the famous old USP still be in place?
Either way, I hope that Gillette's new P&G masters can impart some of the knowledge they must have accumulated from their successive high-profile junkets to the Cannes Advertising Festival, and produce advertising spots that move beyond the agonies and computer-animated image of the blades snipping off chin hair.
I think there's more chance of a wet shave from Edward Scissorhands.
- Independent
