I grew up in the 80s watching movies where the good guy, like Daniel LaRusso or Rick Morehouse get the girl by convincing her that her current boyfriend (Johnny and Greg Tolan), who is the stereotypical douche-bag male, that a less dominating, less masculine but more attentive man is more desirable. This is complete bullshit in real life. This commercial just reminds me of that. I get embarrassed just by watching it.
So a Procter and Gamble company ran a socially-conscious commercial. This means one of two things.
One, the company is becoming more socially conscious. If so, this is a fantastic development and I wholeheartedly celebrate it.
Two, it’s either a cynical ploy to curry favor with a changing market or a preemptive CYA for something nasty that’s about to hit the fan. If so, I’ve seen this story a thousand times and there are far worse things they could be doing with their money. Unless there’s proof of actual harm being done, I lack any ability to give a damn.
Either way, the endlessly dreary “SJW” and “cuck” spewing noodlebrains on YouTube can kiss my flabby, pockmarked butt, per usual.
Well, I’ve said my piece. Time to recharge my Norelco. 
The ad and its reaction are both a little overdone. The ad doesn’t bother me though I think messages of corporate green washing and social responsibility can seem a little forced. The reaction is also slightly strange; there are limits to how seriously I would take a commercial or consider it an in-depth discussion of a pertinent issue.
Since this thread was reanimated, I went through it again to re-read my brilliant responses. So, I finally watched this video, and it was so perfectly on point and hilarious! Thanks for sharing (he says, 7 months later)!
Although Proctor and Gamble’s profits overall have been going up, they just took an 8 billion dollar loss on their Gillette division. The combination of alienating older men, while young men are growing more beards, has really kicked them in the teeth, apparently.
? Cite that allegedly “alienating older men” is actually a significant factor in Gillette’s write-down? Because AFAICT what it’s being ascribed to is a combination of currency devaluations, market contraction due to increasing popularity of beards, and new lower-priced competitors like Dollar Shave Club:
I’d need to see some evidence before I believe claims that alleged negative bottom-line impacts from the “We Believe” Gillette commercial are anything more than a right-wing revenge fantasy.
Well, there’s the fact that Gillette says it is moving away from ‘social justice’ ads, which they wouldn’t be doing if the ad had been a success…Also, MarketingWeek (paywalled) claims that customer surveys in the UK show that Gillette’s brand took a big hit with men, and they have a number of articles saying bad things about the ad strategy.
But that said, I have to agree with you. I did some digging into financials rather than secondary data like customer surveys or wonk reports, and there’s nothing there that suggests the ad had a negative effect. At least, nothing yet. And you’re right - the shaving industry as a whole has been in decline for several years, and is down about 11%.
There is no doubt that Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club and others are a factor. And I mentioned young men wearing more beards in my last post. I also suspect a factor is the crazy high prices they have been charging for blades, and I notice that both Schick and Gillette are now planning to lower blade prices.
One way to tell if the ad had a large effect would be to look at how Gillette’s traditional rivals are doing. Schick, for example, saw an 11.2% decline in their wet shaving products in the first two quarters. That’s in line with the overall industry trend. I noticed that Schick’s parent company bought Harry’s.
So Gillette is definitely hurting, but we have no idea if the ad helped or hurt, other than the opinions of writers for ad magazines and a regional survey.
It’s also worth noting that Egard Watches, the company that posted the YouTube pro-men response video, had an instant boom in business. Many of their watch models/variants sold out at once, so much so, and with such volume, that they had to take months to fulfill their sudden backlog of orders.
The moral may be that “you get more flies with a spoonful of honey than a gallon of vinegar.” If you want an uptick in business, focus on building up, not tearing down. If Gillette had made an ad perceived as pro-women and positive, i don’t think anyone would have complained. It was the fact that it was perceived as anti-men that caused the firestorm.
It is also difficult to untangle some of the impacts. Anecdotal - My son was offended by the ad. He’d been meaning to try the Dollar Shave Club. The ad motivated him to actually do so.
Looks like the criticism worked. Gillette is going with an entirely different approach now:
Ben the Australian firefighter
never mind
[quote]
Looks like the criticism worked. Gillette is going with an entirely different approach now:
Ben the Australian firefighter
[/quote]No. This is poor logic, in all three parts.
In the first paragraph, you are comparing a small company with a large national company company. A small company being overwhelmed with orders only requires a small number of people. It’s not indicative of a huge problem. Hell, the two companies aren’t even in competition with each other.
Your second paragraph’s main flaw is that the ad is objectively not anti-men. The ad makes a big deal about celebrating “real men.” What the ad is against is certain sexist behaviors. Thus, anyone claiming the ad is anti-men is actually claiming that sexism is part of what it means to be a man. Yet, at the same time, those people argue that men don’t actually act like that–so we have a contradiction.
The third paragraph (in the separate quote) is flawed for two reasons: First off, you posted an ad from Gillette Australia, while the ad in the OP is from Gillette in the US. Second, nothing in the second ad repudiates anything in the first ad. There is no reversal, no denial of anything said in the previous ad. There definitely isn’t a return to their more sexist advertising in the past. The narrative of “Gillette has learned from its mistake” is entirely one you are adding.
All that really happened was that a company that had kept its head down made an ad that offended anti-feminists, because it embraced some (rather old) ideas from feminism. Those who are upset, however, are unwilling to argue that the negative things in the ad are actually good, so they pushed an inconsistent message that the ad was anti-men while saying that men don’t act that way.
A small company capitalized on the outrage, and got some more customers in doing so. They borrowed Gillette’s publicity at that point for themselves. While I don’t agree with their video, it was a good business move. But it in no way means the original ad was ineffective or bad.
And, well, Gillette Australia made an ad that doesn’t appear to be part of the US campaign, and put it on their surprisingly small YouTube channel.
[quote=“Velocity, post:171, topic:827873”]
Looks like the criticism worked. Gillette is going with an entirely different approach now:
Ben the Australian firefighter
I’m shocked that they have a different ad campaign many months later in a different country! Thanks for sharing.