This is a fantastic idea. I would love to help in any way I can.
We have to deal with companies doing business internationally, though, since
I don't see we can get anywhere with companies operating solely in the States.
Remek
On 10/15/05, Ezra Steinberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Jim's thinking is "spot on" in my view.
If we can use P&G's leadership (and a couple of other receptive larger
companies) to help come up with a white paper or some such that could lay
out the case for rationalization of package sizes and the advantage of hard
metric sizes to boot, I think FMI's objections could be met head on.
This might be a project for the USMA to take a leadership role in.
Lorelle??? :-)
Ezra
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Elwell" < [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2005 2:25 PM
Subject: [USMA:34894] Re: Picking apart FMIs arguments
> At 15 October 2005, 02:08 PM, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> >We already have a proliferation of sizes. I've seen 500 g and 454 g pasta
> >packages on the same shelf and two bottles of water, one a round number
of
> >fluid ounces and the other metric, from the same company. I think what we
> >need is some litership ;)
>
> This brings up an interesting point: two or three years ago I was in
> the local supermarket (Smith's, now owned by Fred Meyer), and was
> somewhat taken aback when I actually thought about the number of
> different packages of toothpaste in that aisle.
>
> There were variations in:
> manufacturer (Colgate, Crest, private labels, etc.)
> "purpose" (whitening, sensitive teeth, etc.)
> taste (mint, regular, etc.)
> size (travel, home, family, etc.)
> tube variations (screw top, flip top, etc.)
> package variations (tube, dispenser, etc.)
>
> I stopped counting the different items when I hit 100; total was
> probably 150 or so.
>
> Now, ask yourself: how many people can tell you the size of the tube
> of toothpaste they buy? I don't mean something like "travel size,"
> but something specific like "3 oz" or "50 g". I doubt 1% of the
> population can answer this question. I can't.
>
> There are eleven people here at QSI today (yes, on Saturday) and I
> just ran around and asked each of them. Ten had no idea, or just said
> "the big tube" or something like that. One actually said "The six
> ounce tube." But, she was an executive at Proctor & Gamble (Colgate
> brand) for 20+ years, and so is a bit more attuned to such things
> than most of us.
>
> So I would suggest that a toothpaste company packaging its toothpaste
> in hard metric sizes (e.g., 100 g [3.4 oz]) cannot possibly be a
> detriment in the consumer's mind, since the consumer will not notice it!
>
> And the unit of measure cannot be very important from a marketing
> standpoint, because if it was there would not likely be such a
> variety of other marketing angles to a single product.
>
> Now, how do we get a consumer products manufacturer to realize they
> can switch at least some items to metric-size packages and NOT suffer
> any consequences? Plus realize the benefits of having the same
> package sizes all over the world.
>
> Jim Elwell
>
>
> Jim Elwell, CAMS
> Electrical Engineer
> Industrial manufacturing manager
> Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
> www.qsicorp.com
>
>
