The Contorion promise of precision (#R11)
A quick mocking rant to fill this week’s emptiness a little bit – slightly more enjoyable for those that speak German. Since German engineering was/is synonymous to precision and quality, often times really bad fixes caused by lack of time, materials (including tools) and knowledge/amount of residual fucks are ridiculed by linking them to non-precision materials such as expanding foam (“Bauschaum”) and sanitary silicone (“Silikon”). Both are applied in abundance, more is considered better(er), and of course no excess material is removed afterwards. Try googling Bauschaummafia if you really don’t know what I’m talking about.
It’s usually easier to create these eyesores with foam due to the expansive nature of it, but plumbing-related things are often time-critical and once the ugly makeshift fix works, well, it works, why change anything. It’s not even necessary to use foam or silicone to be ridiculed for something – if it’s bad enough, those materials are automatically present by the sheer power of taunting it.
So, “Silikon statt Präzision” (“silicone instead of precision work/accuracy”) or similar terms are often used to describe things that are clearly sub par for whatever reason. The marketing guys of Contorion, a German tools vendor that actually sells nice stuff from Festool, Makita, Hazet and so on, decided to turn that around and proclamate “Präzision statt Silikon”, so quality instead of kludge. Contorion is owned by the Hoffmann Group since 2017 and apparently boosts online sales in one of the core product categories of Hoffmann (but for 3rd party products). Smart advertisting for a vendor of premium tools. Apparently smart enough to win my employer as a customer, although we already have a long relationship with Hoffmann Group directly and I’m quite fond of many of their branded tools.
But sometimes reality hits hard.
Somebody please tell the logistics crew of Contorion that this is a serious marketing claim.
In case they’re aware of it already – try higher pay and more manpower instead. Maybe that’ll lead to more fucks given when packaging expensive tools. Fewer squashed parcels, less chance to be ridiculed by your own marketing claim.
