(Cue fanfare)
Produt of the Day
Israeli's NEED the Swiffer and I mean, yesterday. Here we are trying to wield this archaic, clumsy sponga stick, when you can easily clean your beautiful marble and stone floors with the swiffer. I actually will admit that I brought a swiffer with me to Israel, and even packed away four packages of the dry sheets. However, the wet sheets I brought soaked through in my suitcase and actually ruined one of my shirts. That was pretty sad, and I was more upset that I had to toss the sheets than throw away a new shirt! That's how much I love and miss my swiffer wet cloths. If it were up to me, I would import them to Israel ASAP! Can you imagine, how much cleaner my apartment would be if I only had the Swiffer Wet Jet? It was too late for me to buy one when I lived on the Upper West Side, because the product came out after I decided to make Aliyah, and believe me when I say that I was upset that I missed out on getting that product. When I had a rug on the Upper West Side, I would buy the swiffer carpet cloths but didn't have a chance to get the stick that goes with the cloths. So, and I kid you not, I would spend a few minutes on my hands and knees just pressing the cloths to the carpet. It worked great and I was just about to buy the carpet stick when, yeah, you guessed it - I decided to move to Israel.
Not convinced Mr. Procter and Gamble? Well, here's some stats that someone should really corroborate (hire me, I'll do the research for you so you do all your due diligence before making the decision to sell Swiffer in Israel!)
1) Israeli homes are 95% carpet free. Occassionally, someone will buy a nice Oriental or Persian rug, but because of all of the dust storms (we are living in the desert) it's easier to keep the house clean without a rug. The people I know who have a rug, usually roll it up in the corner and only break it out when fancy company comes to town.
2) Israeli's are a busy people, and many don't have time to clean. Most people hate cleaning, but really want their house to sparkle. Do you realize how much work it takes to do sponga in this Country? You need to fill up the bucket, drop in the cloths to soak (and, mind you, they get dirty after you wash one room and so essentially you are pushing dirt around on a rag when you get to the other rooms), squeeze the cloth out, push it around on a stick (and it doesn't exactly stay in place, and I know, cause I bought one of those super sponga's that have a mechanism to keep the rag in place and it STILL doesn't work for me) and then repeat for all the rooms in your home. This includes the bathroom and the balcony's! Think about ease of use, and the time saving factor, the Swiffer would have on Israeli culture. Personally, I think if you brought the swiffer to Israel, there would be a lot less road rage. That's why they're always accidents on the road! It's cause these people are pissed they have to come home, after a busy day working, to sponga their house!
3) Many Israeli's don't own a vacumn cleaner. No reason to, when all they need is a broom and a sponga!
4) Israel has some great advertising agencies who can pull together a great TV/Radio and print campaign for your product, which would sell out in no-time! And, I don't represent or work with any of Israel's advertising agencies, but I'm an avid TV watcher and can tell you that some of these ads make me run out and buy products. Well, except for that one about being 4 already and the pudding. That ads just annoying, and since I can't remember the name of the pudding, isn't that effective. No brand recall (I used to work with a company called the Intermedia Advertising Group, which monitors the effectiveness of advertising, and I know what I'm talking about in terms of brand recall)
So, that's it, that's pretty much my pitch and plea to the folks over at Procter and Gamble to PLEASE bring the Swiffer to Israel. Not only will you be making my job easier, but you'll be saving lives!
1 comment:
Doing sponga IS a real pain- one way to make it a little easier is to make a hole in the center of the rag and put it over the stick instead of trying to keep the rag wrapped around the bottom part (an exercise in futility). Then you just sort of dunk the rag into the bucket (no need to wring it out if you're careful not to get too much water on the rag) and sponga away!
Once in a while you will need to take the rag off the stick and rinse off all the dirt and wring it out, but it's much easier than having to do this after every, what would you call it...swipe?
Another thing you might want to try is buying a mophead and screwing it into a broom handle or sponga stick. They're not as easy to find as they were years ago, but if you're lucky you can find either string mops or, what I preferred, mops made out of strips of cloth. I used to have a bucket that had an attachment on top that would let you wring out the mop- no bending, no getting your hands wet. Not sure if they sell these anymore, but it's worth a try, they work great!
Sorry to go on so long on this subject- when you've lived here as long as I have, you pick up a few things :-)
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