Captive Marketing

17, December 2007 in Marketing
Tags: army, army welfare, captive marketing, captive pricing, foc, free gifts, gillette, gimmicks, Marketing, national service, ns, promotion, shavers, shaving blades

Here’s a classic example of Captive Marketing at work:

Gillette Fusion

It’s a Gillette Fusion 5 Blade Shaving Surface + Precision Trimmer Fusion Shaver (I know, what a mouthful) that was issued to us army boys for FREE. The last I saw it was advertised on the papers at $9.90 for the same set.

I’m not sure if the SAF paid for the blade, but I reckon Gillette probably offered them to us for free. So you must wonder why the generosity.

You see, these shavers have shaving blades that do not last long — at least the lubricating portion doesn’t and that’s the key feature of the shaver. So once that runs out, you’ve got to get a replacement blade. And these blades cost dang alot of money — and I mean DANG alot.

Smart marketing people at Gillette don’t you think? Give away the shavers for free to THOUSANDS of national servicemen, capture them as users, then profit from their recurring replacement of their blades that I assume are of super duper sky high margins.

Kudos Gillette. Though I know how you’re going to suck me dry of my money, I’m still a victim.