Another Viral Ad from P&G/Gillette

Does that change the title of the shave cream I used this morning to "Nothing Foamy w/Menthol"?

 

I haven't seen it, but it sounds comparable to the Aqua Velva ad where the man uses it, then flips it to his son.

 

It seems to me that we are bombarded by ads that these corporations feel that the more aggressive, comical or serious the ad the more we will tend to buy. Is the old adage, "that if you tell a person enough times that something is necessary for them that sooner or later they believe they need it" True? I remember the years that when Stars like John Wayne, Lou Gehrig or Ted Williams endorsed shaving items in magazines and men bought them. Luckily I listened to my Dad on most of what shaving items to buy, not sure but I think it was a Micky Mantel ad that got me to pick my Gillette Slim.

 

I remember those days where what made you take notice was who was promoting the product. But today we are so ensconced in our different forms of media apparatus that we are constantly bombarded by ads from every direction. So the old ways don't work anymore. I think it really boils down to one thing. Whether you remember the product being promoted by the ad and not whether you like or agree with what it is saying. In other words I've seem some really funny ads and after it ends I scratch my head and have no idea what they were selling. That's not a good ad. I don't think these ads are good because they are aggressive or comical or serious. They are good because they are memorable. What makes them memorable? Well, what we are all doing here is evidence that the P&G ad was a good one. It is a conversation starter. And you know what they were selling. Period. That's it. It doesn't matter that some people will take offense and not buy their product. Those people are probably in the minority anyway. Now, I'm not saying an ad that is universally offensive is a good ad. I'm not. But this P&G ad was only offensive to some people and most likely they are in the minority. Anyway, we are talking about the ad and that means the advertising firm that created the ad did their job well and more than earned their fee.

 

That transgender teen identifies as male, therefore, according to the first Gillette PC commercial, "We Believe", he is filled with toxic masculinity and inherently flawed. He needs to look in the mirror, understand why he is an awful person, and learn to behave himself. Those two preachy Gillette commercials contradict each other.

There is actually a world of difference between the two commercials. One says all men are dirt, and the other merely shows a trans dude learning to shave. Trying to capture market share with trans men makes sense. Their money is as good as anyone else's. Insulting large segments of their customer base was a monumentally stupid thing for Gillette to do. Wading into politics will needlessly antagonize many customers, even if it wins Gillette some kudos. Given that they recently took an $8 billion hit, they need to retain every customer they can. That writedown is due to the rising popularity of beards, not a backlash to the PC commercials as some wetshavers have implied.

Maybe it's just me, but I would be much more likely to buy Gillette products after seeing one of their vintage commercials than their recent ads. Does Gillette really think these men are toxic? If they do, Proctor & Gamble's board of directors should be fired.

 

as long as they keep their st.petersburg plant open .i'll be happy..

 

Like that 50's Ad . Gillette should repeat those type of Ads with their new products

 

I'm not easily offended so the first ad didn't really bother me. I see the problems with it but I don't care enough about Gillette or Proctor & Gamble to let their message bother me. This current ad is executed much better. Being a father to three men I've done this very thing thrice over (unfortunately in my cartridge shaving days) and it's always nice to see this tradition continue regardless of whether the person is trans or...whatever the opposite of trans is. It won't make me buy Gillette products but it's a nice, feel good, ad.

This one gets the thumb up.

 

sneaky men,..using the car windshield as a mirror.

 

I saw the first trans gender ad, I haven't seen the second ad

 

I'm trying to picture myself going in to meet with my corporation's executives to tell them that I want make a series of advertisements that will appeal to one segment of our customers while offending another. Not only would my proposal be rejected, I'd lose their professional confidence.

So, it really makes me wonder what's going on.

 

I'd like Old Spice to do the same.

 

I don't recall if it was posted earlier or linked somewhere in this thread but but a statement from P&G essentially said that if you're one of the people who are going to "boycot" Gillette because you were offended by the commercial then you're not someone they want as a customer. Hey, they can take any position that they want but that doesn't make good business sense to me. So they may actually have considered that their campaign might offend half the audiance before they undertook it. Sounds like you'd just have to carefully pick which half of your segment to offend to make sure it's the one that managment wants to alienate!

 

There was a second one? The transgender ads don't bother me, as they are not insulting. Besides, trans guys want a smooth, irritation-free, affordable shave just like everyone else. Hopefully they will discover traditional shaving before they get too much irritation.

I used to work in a marketing department for a very large company, and occasionally saw nonsense like that. Usually, it is some high-ranking manager or executive who decides to indulge themselves and go off in a goofy, totally stupid direction. When the Gillette "men are douchebags" commercial starts dragging down P&G's bottom line, their execs will start feeling the heat. Then they will very much want every customer they can get. Gotta please the shareholders, too!

 

Agreed. They either decided that they needed to/wanted to take a moral position given the whole "me too" movement that was really in full swing at that time or they thought the campaign was going to get them more customers. Frankly, I'm okay with either. It's their decision to make. When I think about the commercial, I think maybe the poor execution got in the way of the real message. I mean, I'm against bullying, the objectification of women, and sexual harrassment. I've broken up fights between boys, had to tell friends to tone it down, and actively try to set a positive example for my sons, even now when the youngest is twenty. I fully support an ad and a corporation who stand for positive things but Gillette's ad muddied the message in its delivery and ended up implying that the negative aspects shown were instinctive or bred into all men. That we had to un-learn these poor traits.

And maybe they have somewhat of a point. The ad shows an old-style TV show being filmed and there is some truth to poor male behavior in mass media. Ralph Kramden threatened his wife with physical violence every night. And every night we laughed. James Bond has been called "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War" both by the media and in one of his own films (Golden Eye). And in how many TV shows were the female characters simply conquests for their male counterparts? I know, it's only TV or the movies. I watched them too and feel like I grew up okay. My point is that there have been some pretty poor examples for men over the years. And so prevelent that today we've come to call the "a sign of their time."

Ahh, I went on longer than I expected to. I guess all I'm saying is that there's a good message in the ad that was timely given what's been going on lately (Weinstein, Cosby, Spacey, Lauer, Louis C.K., R. Kelly, et al.) that was obscured in the ham-handed delivery.

 

well said..

 

the world is a mess..as a person who grew up in 70s britain the "this is my street,don't come back or else" attitude sucked..bullying,racism,gender bashing,sexism were all the norm..on tv,the street, anywhere..i as a 6" 250 lb individual had to become a bruiser to stop beatings and reduce the stitches..i had become the bully,targeting anyone who was assaulting anyone smaller or weaker..it was very real in my young years and there didn't seem to be any help or way out..having grown up with mistrust of anyone with money ,power or influence its hard to believe in anything without seeing an ulterior motive..people in positions of trust have committed some crappy acts,to myself and others i know..some have turned to drugs and died,taken their own lives or others,or just generally have been miserable to themselves or others..the internet/media of today has made such things readily available to almost everyone ..sometimes i feel like the world hasn't progressed very much at all ,just more gadgets and toys for the lucky ones, and misery and crap for the poor and uneducated.i keep my head down and work everyday to make ends meet like most people .i am not politically or religiously motivated nor an activist.. things do need to change..and not everyone will be happy about it..just my six pence worth..

 

Some parts of the world might be a mess, but the Western democracies are doing well comparatively speaking. We take for granted a standard of living, stability and freedoms many people can only dream about. Half of the world's population does not have Internet access, and clean, safe drinking water and sufficient food are hard to come by in a lot of places. There is a lot we take for granted. When people wax nostalgic, they nearly always remember only the good things, forgetting all the negatives. If we did that with our present-day world, it would seem like a Golden Age, too. As for the bad things, perhaps this approach would help:

Everybody is lying to you.
Think for yourself.
Question authority.

Most of all, this:

We have cool luxury razors at all price points, blades are dirt cheap, and we can great shaves to start each and every day.

For wetshaving at least, the present, not the past, is the Golden Age.

 

very good sir,well said..

 

Unlike that other commercial I do not really see a issue here. There is really no way to change your gender by the way...you change your apperance. You can make a chevy look like a ford...but under it all it's still a chevy. That being said I see no issue with a chevy owner wanting to change his look.