Gillette Case
Case: Gillette Mach3
Design played a major strategic role at Gillette. The mach3 was higher in design effectiveness than their original razor. It suited the consumer need of a closer, gentler shave for men by providing a pivotal head and razors that were closer to the skin, but felt like a paintbrush. The mach3 was designed to Meet Customer Needs. It provides meaningful benefits to the customer and contains a user-oriented design by solving the problem of razor blades causing irritation to the skin. They also added a pivot point which made shaving feel a little like using a paintbrush, added to the cartridge’s stability, and ensured that the bottom edge of the cartridge always touched the face first (ensuring that hairs were lifted properly).Perceptible Information. The design communicates the required information effectively to the user. Low Physical Effort: The design can be used efficiently by anyone with minimal fatigue.
The risks involved in the decision to go with the really new Mach3 design, versus making incremental design improvements to the older Sensor Excel technology is that it cost a ton of money and time to design. It took six years and $750 million, about four times what the Sensor cost. Further, $300 million was allocated for marketing in the first year ($100 million in the United States and $200 million elsewhere), so the up-front costs broke the billion-dollar barrier. The Mach3 blade would cost about 50 percent more to manufacture than Sensor Excel, the premium Gillette blade at the time. The plan was to have the Mach3 available in about 100 countries by the end of 1999. By com-parison, the Sensor (largely regarded as a global marketing success) needed five years to reach that level of distribution.
I wouldn’t recommend they take it slower because the amount of time it is taking them to rollout this product is already allowing for competitors to copy, catch up, or get ahead of them in design. the pros are that the design will attract many
Design played a major strategic role at Gillette. The mach3 was higher in design effectiveness than their original razor. It suited the consumer need of a closer, gentler shave for men by providing a pivotal head and razors that were closer to the skin, but felt like a paintbrush. The mach3 was designed to Meet Customer Needs. It provides meaningful benefits to the customer and contains a user-oriented design by solving the problem of razor blades causing irritation to the skin. They also added a pivot point which made shaving feel a little like using a paintbrush, added to the cartridge’s stability, and ensured that the bottom edge of the cartridge always touched the face first (ensuring that hairs were lifted properly).Perceptible Information. The design communicates the required information effectively to the user. Low Physical Effort: The design can be used efficiently by anyone with minimal fatigue.
The risks involved in the decision to go with the really new Mach3 design, versus making incremental design improvements to the older Sensor Excel technology is that it cost a ton of money and time to design. It took six years and $750 million, about four times what the Sensor cost. Further, $300 million was allocated for marketing in the first year ($100 million in the United States and $200 million elsewhere), so the up-front costs broke the billion-dollar barrier. The Mach3 blade would cost about 50 percent more to manufacture than Sensor Excel, the premium Gillette blade at the time. The plan was to have the Mach3 available in about 100 countries by the end of 1999. By com-parison, the Sensor (largely regarded as a global marketing success) needed five years to reach that level of distribution.
I wouldn’t recommend they take it slower because the amount of time it is taking them to rollout this product is already allowing for competitors to copy, catch up, or get ahead of them in design. the pros are that the design will attract many