Loony Letters

The Brief

Gillette calls themselves “The Best A Man Can Get”, and seems to have an obsession for “innovating” with their razors by simply adding another blade to it. In fact, their TV ads are on the receiving end of about as many jokes as ones about the DFS sale. So, we thought, why not cut the constant “innovation”, and skip to the best razor they’ll ever make?

 

The Loony Letter

Dear Gillette,

I am amazed by your constant innovation. Not content with making a razor with one blade on, you made one with three!

But that’s not all – your latest product has not four, not even five, but six blades! Yes, six! Wow! Zoinks! KAPOW!

So, what’s next for the “pimp-daddy” of razors? Seven blades? Eight? What about nine? No, don’t underestimate yourselves.

I think you should make a razor with 718 blades! Yes, it’ll be amazing! You could call it the Gillette Mr. Super-Choppy! It’ll be great – just think, you could shave your face in one go with it.

If you would like to proceed with manufacturing the Mr. Super-Choppy, please send me an advance of £250 million, and I’ll make sure my lawyer (his name’s Chow Yin Wong – he works down my local kebab house) sorts out signing over the idea to yourselves as soon as possible.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Bill Bennett

 

The Reply

Dear Mr Bennett

Thank you for your recent letter. May I firstly apologise for this standard and formal reply to your suggestion.

As you may be aware, there can be legal and other complications in relation to unsolicited ideas such as yours, particularly if the idea coincides with something we are already working on. We have therefore decided not to consider any idea unless it is of a technical nature and only then if it is patented or has a patent pending.

If therefore you wish to submit an idea which is patented or patent pending, we would ask that you visit us at http://exapp004.informative.com/cadpg/mypage.jsp. We have also decided that any unsolicited idea which has not been patented should be returned to the sender, with this explanation, without any assessment of its merit.

The Procter & Gamble Company does not receive suggestions of product names, packaging ideas, advertising material, recipes, premiums, or contests. Such ideas are more appropriately obtained from our own employees and advertising agencies. This policy, which has been in effect for many years, serves the interest of submitters as well as those of The Procter & Gamble Company. If your idea falls within one of these categories, we regret that we are unable to look further into this for you.

We know that some people write to us with an idea purely out of friendly interest and without any thought of financial gain. Unfortunately, there is no way of differentiating between those who have (or mig ht come to have such a proprietary interest) and those who do not. If you are in this latter group, we ask especially for your understanding.

Thank you in any event for your interest in our company.

 

The Review

The most boring response in the history of boring responses, P&G (the makers of the Gillette range) might as well have just jotted down “bog off” on the back of, well, a razor blade, and sent it back to us.

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