Extinguished

Gillette puts out its Cricket

It was one of the hottest marketing battles of recent years. On one side was Gillette's inexpensive Cricket lighter (price: about 70¢), which could be used for months and then thrown away. On the other was Bic's equally disposable model (69¢), famed for the slogan "Flick my Bic!" But after more than a decade of struggling, Gillette last week conceded defeat. The Boston-based company said it planned to sell its Cricket line to Swedish Match, a leading European lighter maker.

"Gillette hasn't succeeded in the sale of Crickets for years," said Jeffrey Ashen-berg, an analyst for the New York City investment firm of L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin. "Obviously it's decided, 'Enough.' " In addition to being slightly cheaper, the Bic version was perceived as better by many customers. Among its advantages:

an oval shape that buyers seemed to find more comfortable to use than the rounder form of the Cricket. Such preferences helped boost the Bic model last year to an estimated 53% share of the $325 million U.S. market for disposable lighters, vs. Cricket's 16%. Gillette was third in the race behind Scripto, which accounted for 24% of 1983 sales.

The lighter defeat was a bitter one for Gillette, which introduced its butane-fueled throwaway in 1972 and used a bright Jiminy Cricketlike creature as the product's symbol. But Bic, the American subsidiary of France's Societe Bic, jumped into the market the following year and quickly pulled ahead.

Bic's version has been gaining ground since the mid-1970s.

While dropping the Cricket may wound Gillette's pride, it should have little financial impact on the company.

Sales of the lighter amounted to only $42 million last year, or about 2% of Gillette's total revenues of $2.2 billion. The disposal of the line, moreover, will relieve the firm of a drain on earnings.

Even though Bic has beaten Gillette in the lighter skirmish, the battle between the two companies will rage on. The firms are equally fierce competitors in the throwaway pen and razor markets. While Bic's pen outsells Gillette's Write Bros, model, the Gillette twin-blade disposable Good News shaver holds an edge over the Bic single-blade entry. Gillette is also the leading producer of blades and razors in the U.S. and Canada and most of the rest of the world. In the bathroom battle at least, the American company continues to clean up.