Halx

Ok.. I just saw this commercial for a Remington shaver that proclaimed that Titanium is one of the sharpest metals known to man. Ok. Think about this. Is a metal sharp? I understand hardness and maleability, but... correct me if I'm wrong, but any metal can be shaped to be just as sharp as the next one, right?

Sorry, I just wonder sometimes... companies say some stupid things in their commercials that perhaps the avg person doesn't pick up on. I laugh when I see computer software commercials on TV because they are for shitty "professional grade" applications that probably took a drunken application developer one afternoon to produce.

So, we know that companies have to support all claims about their product that they make in commercials, but you can get away with so much. "Number 1 car in America" "$40 value for only $15"

Moral of the story is... don't trust anything that a commercial says.

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rogue49

I think the confused the fact that it's one of the "strongest" metals known to man (while having a relatively low weight),
and the fact that they were advertising razors. (which happen to be sharp, eh?)

Advertiser don't care about facts or correctness,
they just want your attention so you BUY, BUY, BUY

I happen to be a pretty damn good advertiser, salesman & BS artist myself,
believe me...it's all in the wording & positioning.

I'm sure Art has a thing or two to say on this,
he's been fascinated by this since I've known him.

Elegant Holmes

My God Man! I saw the same commercial this weekend and could not stop laughing! All of the peolple around me were growing noticeably tense when the advertisment would come on the TV and I would go into a drunken diatribe about the idiotic premise that a certain metal was "sharper" than another. I also pointed to the fact that the ad agencies believed all of us are kindergarten flunkies who could not discern sharp from hot or likewise.
Thanks for noticing the idiotic spot and for the thread.
(I am vented, and no longer the most angry of individuals)

krwlz

Well, indirectly it can be sharper.

What they really mean is that it is harder, and therefore holds a sharper edge, longer.

Kaos

Some metals are more dense then others and can me sharpened more down to a finer blade. A soft aluminum could only get so sharp until the sharpened end would easily chip off. Titanium is much more dense and can hold it's form even at micrometers.

BooRadley

Halx is correct.

Sharpness is relative, you can sharpen anything to an uberfine point. You can make a knife out of plastic, sharpen the hell out of it, and cut materials all day softer than it. When you are talking about metal vs human hair, it is pointless to use exotic metals.

Titanium is actually more elastic than most metals but is also very hard. It does a very good job at cutting things when sharpened right , but that is overkill. The sharpest knives out there are made out of a ceramic, something you wouldn't normally consider sharp.

kel

True, but the ads still work. They aren't advertising to you necessarily, and simply having you identify their name is important. Your far more likely to buy the product you saw in an advertisement then the one you have never seen advertised before.

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Redlemon

Speaking of things in ads... every time I hear a radio sweepstakes or contest advertisement, they have a bit of audio with someone opening the bottlecap and saying "I won!"

Great, I think, there's one fewer grand prize available to me.

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ARTelevision

Remington is just jumping into the fray here. The wild claims made by the big guns in shaving technology have opened the doors for ad agencies to do what they do best - mess with our minds by messing with our language.

Here's a couple of items from the annals of razor-ology that have more to do with splitting hairs than actually cutting them off:

...........

Sharp words - and lawsuits - exchanged as razor makers do battle

October 16, 2003

In a very old Gillette plant on the South Side of Boston, a fairly young guy is showing off some very new technologies.

Craig Provost, 27, a senior industrial designer, is using a joystick to pull up a curve here, flatten one there and otherwise transform a virtual block of clay on his laptop screen into a razor.

When he's satisfied, he sends the digital model to another machine, which uses it as a blueprint to make a hard plastic version.

"In just a few days, you can try out any number of different designs, see how they look and feel in your hands," Provost said.

Now it is the turn of Colin Clipstone, 60, director of blade and razor technology.

His camera can capture, in very slow motion, the movement of a blade slicing a human hair that is sprouting from a block of synthetic skin.

The device also records the amount of force the blade applies, how far the hair bends before the blade slices through it and how sharp an angle is left on the stubble.

The sharper the angle, the rougher the stubble, so the machine gives a good indication of how different razors perform.

"We'll put forth a theory - say, that a different blade coating or cutting speed gives a closer shave - and the machine can show if we're right," Clipstone said.

The men are demonstrating the techniques using existing Gillette razors such as the Sensor3, the Mach3 and the Mach3 Turbo.

But in the laboratory down the hall - a room strictly off limits to curious outsiders - Gillette researchers are using the same machines, and many others, to fine-tune a new razor that Peter Hoffman, head of the company's shaving group, says will pretty much make all existing razors - including Gillette's - obsolete.

He had better be right. For most of its 102-year corporate life, Gillette was the undisputed leader in razor blades, one of the most profitable consumer products in the world.

Its formula was simple: it made good razors, sold them cheap and reaped profits - year in, year out - from the replacement blades that loyal customers kept buying. Sure, there were competitors, but none that caused much consternation.

Until now.

Gillette is embroiled in a nasty battle with Schick-Wilkinson Sword, which last month introduced the Quattro, a four-blade shaving system (as sets of non-disposable razors with disposable blades are called).

This is no gentleman's duel. Gillette has sued Schick for patent infringement, saying that the positioning of Quattro's four blades is a knockoff of the Mach3's three-blade design.

Schick, in turn, has sued Gillette for false advertising, saying that the stellar performance of Schick's Quattro and its Xtreme3 disposable gives the lie to Gillette's claims that its razors provide the world's best shave.

"This is the first credible threat that Gillette has faced in the high-margin razor system business," said Alison Kerivan, an analyst at the investment firm David L. Babson.

The battling claims are not confined to court. Mr. Hoffman says that sales of Gillette's Venus razor system for women increased steadily even after Intuition, a Schick product, hit the market last northern spring.

Joseph Lynch, Schick's president, says that Intuition is gaining more ground all the time.

Edward DeGraan, Gillette's president, contends that Gillette's manufacturing technology gives it a competitive edge.

Hoffman says that an independent firm is now conducting a consumer comparison test between the Quattro and the Mach3 Turbo, and that the Mach3 Turbo is sure to win.

Not surprisingly, Schick's tests have yielded the opposite conclusion.

The tests "have provided us with the backing for several claims we can make in future ads", said Alvin Robertson, Schick's chief marketing officer.

This is war, and Gillette is firing as many types of ammunition as it can.

It has stepped up the number of Mach3 Turbo razors it sends to consumers who do not now use a Gillette product.

Gillette just introduced Mach3 Turbo Champion, a bright red and black razor that, not at all by coincidence, is packaged to look like a high-speed sports car and is clearly aimed at a young, macho type of guy.

And, of course, there's that mysterious new razor, the one that's supposed to make all others irrelevant, being developed in the South Boston lab.

It is no gross exaggeration to say that Gillette's future is at stake.

Razor systems are one of the few product lines in which the most expensive - and highest-margin - products are the ones whose sales grow the fastest.

Moreover, shavers are a loyal bunch, and all the data indicate that the brand that people use in their youth is usually the brand they use through their dotage.

The New York Times

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...917475310.html

.............

The razor wars - not-too-sharp logic
By Ron Charles
Full-page ads in national newspapers (though, alas, not this one) have been heralding the advent of the Quattro razor.

"Two blades are better than one, and three blades are better than two," the ad reasoned in the logic of American consumption. "That's as good as it gets, right? WRONG."

"On September 22," the razormaker, Schick,intoned with historical gravitas, "the world's first four-bladed razor arrives in stores."

Surely, future generations will ask themselves, "Where were you on September 22?" And if Schick has its way, half of us will answer, "I was scraping my face with the best dang razor ever!"

But not if Gillette has anything to say about it. The world's largest razormaker is suing Schick, the world's fastest- growing razormaker, to cut the new Quattro down even before it sprouts in grocery stores.

Gillette claims this new four-blade razor illegally infringes on its patent for the Mach3. That's the three-blade razor you've seen on TV: A jet fighter disintegrates in flight, but the pilot, wearing only a towel, is miraculously deposited in the bathroom where he and an attractive woman admire his chin.

I have not tried the Quattro razor yet, but I can report that using the Mach3 has not led me to experience anything like what I saw in the TV ad. Perhaps it only works for fighter pilots.

Or maybe I just need more blades. Surely, as Gillette and Schick continue to battle for dominance in the $6 billion razor market, their consumer labs will find more improvements. If "four blades precisely synchronized to maintain optimum contact with the skin" are better than three are better than two are better than one, then, really, the sky's the limit.

Why not imagine a razor with two- or three-dozen blades, an instrument so carefully synchronized and calibrated that the first blade looks for the hair, the second blade evaluates the hair, the third blade announces your intention to cut the hair in the style of a preselected Hollywood heartthrob ... the 18th blade bleaches the root ... the 27th blade massages the follicle ....

Schick's website (who surfs to such pages?) claims that the handle of its new razor has been "ergonomically designed for advanced precision, control and maneuverability."That's more than I ask of my car. (But, then again, I'm not a fighter pilot.)

The cutthroat battle between Gillette and Schick may continue for years, but is it any wonder that American marketing has already conquered the world more quickly and more completely than the American military? Who can resist such unbounded optimism, such flamboyant enthusiasm? People of all nations, give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning for the closest shave ever!

• Ron Charles is the Monitor's book editor.

Christian Science Monitor:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0922/p09s01-coop.html

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Evil Milkman

That stupid Remington commercial with the slogan "...one of the sharpest metals known to man" got me thinkin'; 'Why stop there? Why don't they just coat the blades with diamond?' And then I changed the channel.

shakran

some metals can technically be sharper than others because their molecules are smaller than others.

Of course, the last time I checked, we didn't need to get down to the molecular level to make something sharp enough for shaving

m0ntyblack

LOL, Halx, my roomates and I got into a huge discussion about that commercial earlier this week. I still have to /boggle every time I see the stupid ad. That and the car one that has the song that says "its ironical." WTF...why not just say ironic??

MB

YourNeverThere

I love the car ads where they say "best something in its class" when all they have to do to be in a class is say "this car is the class where car's weight is this excatly weight class, its the only one and the best!"
Or the slogan "the number one something" like radio station or something, because if you think about it "the number one" really doesn't mean anything at all, if they said "most listened to", or something that would be different but just "the number one" implies the best without even making sense, its great.
ALSO, recently there has been a HUGE campaign by the "asscoiation against satallite theft"(sp?) which if you look it up is made up, of course by advertizers, and the broadcasting companies. They have great ad's like ones where kids steal shit from stores and then get cought and say "but dad, you steal satallite!" I laugh my head of, followed by what must be the slogan that really sums up todays world "theft is theft." as in, stealing is wrong in EVERY SITUATION. Even if your starving, if you don't have the money, just die we don't even care. Anyway, thats a bit of hyperbole but regardless. Also before movies these days they have funny ads against movie piracy, the "average blue collar Joe" talks about how he makes his living in the movie business working on sets and whatnot. HE GETS PAID THE SAME RATES REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH MONEY THE MOVIE MAKES! If its a flop, he's been paid months ago! It doesn't matter to him in the slightest if everyone pirated that movie, thats what unions are for! Man, as you can tell this sort of bugs me and I like to yell that last sentace out at the screen beligerantly every time I go to the movies these days.

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Tman144

I like the new razor commercial where it talks about the "new and improved" razor, but the only diffrence is that the new one is red.
On a similar note, the razor battle reminds me of a scene from a movie (Think it was Something about Mary) where the hitchhicker goes on about his 7-minute abs video beating out the 8-minute abs video. Then the guy says something about 6-minute abs and the hitchhicker goes nuts on him. "They have 3 blades so we'll make 4!" "What if they make 5 blades?" "What? 5 blades? Thats preposterous!"

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Amarth

Maybe it means that Titanium can be pinched really tightly together and remain really hard making it a "sharp metal".

PredeconInferno

YourNeverThere

I agree with you on the ad in the movie theatre about pirating movies. However, I have a bit different take on it...

See, they're saying it's bad to pirate movies... and that's all fine and dandy. The issue I have with it is that it's bad-mouthing people who PAID MONEY TO SEE IT IN THE THEATRES. If you ask me, that's kinda like preaching to a proverbial choir.

Of course, if I don't actually buy the DVD that means that poor joe set builder won't.... well won't anything you're right. He's already been paid for working on that movie.

meh.

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Macheath

I could think of a send up for this ad. Jet disintegrates and the pilot parachutes into hostile territory instead of his girlfriends bathroom. Pilot engages in cat and mouse game with a single enemy soldier. They meet! Their guns jam! Pilot pulls out his new ergonomic four blade Schick. Enemy pulls out his trusty old straight edge razor. Game over man...

voiceover - "Why have four little blades when you can have one big one? Go retro, get a straight edge."

irseg

Maybe the whole thing was a ploy to get people to say "Hey, did you see that Remington commercial that said titanium is one of the sharpest metals known to man? SHARPEST? Isn't the stupidest goddamn thing you've ever heard?" Then they discuss it, people remember that razor, and that's what they end up buying next time they go shopping.

Judging by this thread I think it worked perfectly.

Phaenx

I think marketing in general is evil. I don't like those guys, at all.

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Redlemon

"And the ingredients are all-natural, so there are no side effects". Great, here's a dose of all-natural arsenic, have fun.

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jwoody

My personal pet hate, with advertising, is the amazing chemicals added to shampoo.

"Neutrillium" immediately springs to mind.

You can make your own "Neutrillium" with a capful of household bleach and two dishwasher tablets dissolved in a pint of mouthwash.

Probably.

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irateplatypus

as for the movie guys, it does have an impact on them indirectly. if the movie makes less money, then the studio has less money. if the studio has less money, it can finance fewer or only cheaper films. the less money spent on films, the less they pay the crew or fewer they hire.

on principle i agree w/all of you. its pretty much sappy advertising to appeal to the hearts, not the minds, of moviegoers. what i find a bit ironic is that i am sitting there, watching their ad as a somewhat captive audience member, after paying 7-8 dollars to get in the place! after all that, those ads are usually the last in a string of 3-4 we're forced to endure if we get to the movie by its posted time. that irks me.

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Evil Milkman

Wait, maybe titanium stays sharper longer? Gods...

Cynthetiq

"Eleven. Exactly. One louder. "

re: the Satellite association... see who is part of the Partnership for a drug-free america and you'll find EVERY single pharmaceutical company.

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ratbastid

The one that used to get me was the ad for Doans Pills, which are supposed to be for back pain.

The commercial opens with the phrase, "Doctors measure back pain by how far you can bend over." And then they never mention that again. Very strange.

rsl12

i am curious--if titanium is so wonderful, how come they don't make kitchen knives out of the stuff?

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phyzix525

They do I bought some.

rev_skarekroe

maybe it means sharp as in intelligent, i.e. "titanium filed my taxes for me! it sure is one sharp metal!" sk

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Gman

It just seems to me that if I was in possession of the one of the sharpest metals on the planet, my first thought wouldn't be to rub it all all over my face.

Halx

Irreverence makes my day.

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pocon1

I have a titanium watch. It cut my hand off. Actually, it is titanium and it is lighter than a ladies' steel watch. It is verrry nice.

viejo gringo

sounds like an add right out of our local paper.....

I think they make them up so they sound the same in both English and Mexican..

vermin

This thread reminds me of the Monty Python bit about the guy with 122,000 miles of string, which, due to bad planning, is all in three inch lengths.

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bermuDa

neutrillium is just a fancy word for water

And those commercials are ridiculous, as we all know... In ANY communication medium, you have to understand the motivation behind the message. Advertisements are just designed to generate interest in their products, or more accurately, to engrain their products into your memory. Profit is their gain, so their bias is blatant. Advertisements aren't the only sources for such partiality, they are evident in every form of persuasion.

So stop analyzing commercials, they aren't worth your time and attention, unless you are in the advertisment industry.

PS: the commercial just came on as I typed that last sentence, where they cut the car in half. "the only razor with the sharpness of titanium coated blades".... I don't really care what they say, cause I know why they're saying it, to SELL The worse products can sell if they are advertised well.

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billege

All I can tell you is this: the Quattro, a four-blade shaving system, scraped the living shit out of my face. That razor felt rough, but it didn't hurt. When I finished shaving and rinsed off (I always shave in the shower) I could see how many spots were bleeding.

I bled from my neck for about ten minutes. I couldn't shave for a week while I healed.

Shaved with my regular razor, things were fine. Those Crap-tros are dangerous.



More to the point of the thread, I've continued to marvel at the weight loss solutions on TV at night. They all have to come up with new ideas every month to keep selling "the most effective fat burner ever!"

The fat pill that seems silliest to me is the one that expands in your stomache to make you feel full. I'm not so sure about that working. Wouldn't a glass of water do the same thing?

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Fire

Ok- facts about titanium from a guy that sells knives-

the sharper thing is, as far as I am aware, Bullshit- the only way for it to be sharper is for it to have a smaller crystaline structure at a molecular level, which, i belive, it does not- Glass and obsidian make a far sharper edge than steel can be sharpened to- a knife mag ran pics with some ungodly magnification to prove it a few years back

titanium is NOT harder than steel- PERIOD steel has a far higher rockwell hardness (steel hardness is measured on the rockwell C scale- by this measure average knives rate around 55, while titanium Beta alloy is about 44) than titanium- titanium IS far more wear resistant than steel- ie a titanium blade will stay sharp for much longer that steel as long as you do not try to cut something harder with it-

Finaly there is a treatment being done to some knives where the blade is coated in titanium nitride- this pushes the surface rockwell to around 70 and makes it rust proof (this is the gold stuff you see on the end of some expensive drill bits)

I have not seen the comercial- but it seems that if they are using real knife grade titanium the razor should stay sharp quite a bit longer- ditto if they coat the blade w/ titanium nitride BUT IT IS NOT ANY SHARPER- sorry, stupid add guys piss me off- why not just say- stays sharp longer?

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Mongolguy

Damn! Fire beat me to it. I make knives as a hobby and I was going to say.....what he said Never mind. I'll just go keep looking for some of that "Surgical steel" that all those other knives are made out of.

WhoaitsZ

one more product for our wooley brothers and sisters.

mvassek

The ad achieved it goal look how many people have remembered /talked about the razor. Now when you all go shopping for a new electric razor months from now you will remember something special about the remington. You won't remember what is special but you will remember it and think because you remember it , it must be the best therein buying it and closing the loop of the ad.

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I did get the T-shirt, but I've put on some weight so it don't fit.

It made a nice grease rag!