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👋 Ready for some vintage corporate manipulation? While everyone's debating modern "toxic" ads, Gillette was playing 4D chess in 1915: creating a $4 billion market by convincing women that body hair was "embarrassing."

Read time: 3 minutes | 663 words

STORY 

🪒 How Gillette Manufactured a "Need"

What started as King Camp Gillette's quest to expand beyond military contracts became the blueprint for manufacturing social norms. Gillette didn't just sell razors—they engineered shame and turned natural body hair into a $4+ billion annual anxiety.

Before 1915, women's body hair removal was practically unheard of in America. The practice simply didn't exist as a social expectation. But Gillette had saturated the men's market and needed new customers.

The Social Engineering Masterpiece

Gillette launched the Milady Décolleté in 1915—the first women's razor—with surgical precision marketing:

• Linguistic manipulation: Used "smoothing" instead of "shaving," "limbs" instead of "legs"

• False social proof: Claimed fashionable women at "leading summer and winter resorts" were requesting it

• Shame-based messaging: Rebranded natural hair as "objectionable," "embarrassing," and "unclean"

The strategy worked slowly until World War II provided the perfect catalyst. When nylon shortages killed stockings in 1941, leg shaving went from fad to necessity "in a matter of months."

The Staggering Results

• 98% adoption rate by 1964—from virtually zero in 50 years

• Global women's razor market: $4+ billion annually today

• Pink tax premium: Women pay 25% more than men for identical razors

• Lifetime spending: Average woman spends $10,000+ on hair removal

Gillette proved that with enough marketing sophistication, you can convince half the population that their natural state is shameful—and get them to pay premium prices to "fix" it. They didn't just create customers; they engineered a century-long beauty standard from nothing.

It's the ultimate marketing masterstroke: selling the solution to a problem you created.

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INSIGHT + ACTION

5 Lessons from Gillette's Social Engineering Campaign 

1. Create Markets, Don't Just Enter Them. Gillette didn't compete for existing customers—they invented an entirely new customer base by redefining "normal."

• Action: Look for behaviors people do automatically without questioning. Ask: "What if this wasn't normal?" Sometimes the biggest opportunities exist in non-markets.

2. Language Shapes Reality. Gillette avoided "shaving" (masculine) for "smoothing" (feminine) and called legs "limbs." Word choice literally created new social categories.

• Action: Audit your messaging for gendered, cultural, or emotional associations. Small linguistic shifts can reposition entire product categories or break psychological barriers.

3. Manufacture Social Proof Before It Exists. Claims about "fashionable women at leading resorts" requesting razors created false momentum when actual demand was zero.

• Action: When launching in new markets, find credible early adopters or create insider communities first. Social proof is self-fulfilling—but build it authentically.

4. Ride Cultural Waves, Don't Fight Them. Gillette piggybacked on changing fashion (sleeveless dresses) and external events (WWII nylon shortage) rather than forcing adoption.

• Action: Map broader cultural shifts in your industry. Position your product as the logical response to changes already happening, not as the change itself.

5. Play the Long Game with Persistent Messaging. It took 50 years to reach 98% adoption. Gillette didn't expect overnight success—they engineered generational behavior change.

• Action: For category-creating products, budget for decade-long campaigns. Track generational adoption metrics, not quarterly conversions. Some markets take time to mature.

The darker lesson? Gillette proved you can convince entire populations their natural state is "wrong"—but just because you can doesn't mean you should. The most powerful marketing creates genuine value, not manufactured shame.

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