Ginsu

Ginsu (pseudoword meant to evoke the idea of samurai heritage)[1] is a brand of direct marketed knives. The brand is owned by the Douglas Quikut Division of Scott Fetzer, a Berkshire Hathaway Company. The brand was heavily promoted in the late 1970s and 1980s on U.S. television by using infomercials characterized by hawker and hard sell pitch techniques. The commercials generated sales of between two and three million Ginsu sets between 1978 and 1984.[2]

Early history

Ginsu knives are an evolution of a product line developed by the Clyde Castings Company. The company filed for a trademark on the Quikut name for use on carving knives, butcher knives, fruit knives, kitchen knives and can openers in 1921.[3]

Quikut knives were heavily advertised in the U.S. and Canada as inexpensive, stainless steel, hollow ground knives with a lifetime guarantee.[4] Other well known brands used Quikut knives as promotional items, including Lipton Tea[5] and Oxydol.[6]

Large national newspaper, magazine, and radio campaigns were used to market Quikut as far back as the 1930s. A 1938 campaign resulted in orders for 922,000 units. A 1939 campaign included a print ad on the back cover of the

The Ginsu brand

Because the brand name "Quikut" was said to lack panache, Ed Valenti, Barry Becher, and copywriter Arthur Schiff created a new brand name that alluded to the exceptional sharpness and durability of a Japanese sword. Ginsu commercials they created promoted “an amazing, low, low price!,” urging viewers to “Order now!” because “Operators are standing by,” and sweetened the pitch with, “But wait, there’s more!” An inescapable staple of television in the 1970s, the brand also became a part of pop culture. Johnny Carson sometimes used the knives in his routines, and Jerry Seinfeld did a Ginsu bit on the “Tonight Show.”[13]

Media scholar Robert Thompson, of Syracuse University, called the Ginsu advertising campaign "the pitch of all pitches." "Ginsu has everything a great direct-response commercial could have," said John Witek, a marketing consultant and author of Response Television: Combat Advertising of the 1980s. "Ginsu had humor, demonstration, and a precisely structured series of premium offers I call 'the lots-for-a-little approach'."[14][15]

Valenti and Becher later repeated the advertising formula with other products such as the Miracle Slicer, Royal Durasteel mixing bowls, Vacufresh storage containers, the Chainge Adjustable Necklace, and Armourcote Cookware.

Company ownership

In the 1940s Clyde Castings Company changed their company name to the Quikut Corporation.

In early 1964 the Quikut Corporation merged with an automotive company to become Douglas Quikut. Later in 1964 the firm was purchased by the Scott & Fetzer Company a holding company that wanted to use the company's plastic molding capabilities to manufacture parts for its Oreck and Kirby lines of vacuum cleaners. Quikut continued as a brand name under the Quikut Division of Scott & Fetzer.[19]

In 1986 Scott & Fetzer was purchased by Berkshire Hathaway of Omaha, NE, an insurance holding company and the Quikut and Ginsu brand knife production moved to a new plant in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas in 1972.[20]

In 2013, Consumer Reports reviewed the Ginsu Chikara knife set in their comparison of fifty knife sets and rated it as their "Best Buy."[21][22][23]

Further reading

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External links

• Official Ginsu Website
• Ginsu Guys.com
• He Sliced and Diced His Way Into Pop Culture
• Original Ginsu Commercial