Is Gillette’s Latest Advertisement a Marketing Success?

If you have been fortunate enough to watch the latest advertisement by Gillette, the company that sells razors and associated products mainly to men, you will have heard the above quote. Gillette, who have had the slogan, “The best a man could get,” for the best part of 30 years has finally stepped into the light and made some changes to their words.

There has been quite the backlash over the latest Gillette ad on toxic masculinity. However in the marketing world, you could say that Gillette has killed it. Regardless of the number of people who have complained about the advert and its ‘male emasculation,’ the Gillette advertisement has been a marketing dream. Why? Because people are talking about it.
News channels, social media, magazines, newspapers – every conceivable media tool has picked up on this conversation piece of an advert and had their say. Gillette waded in with their advert as a response to the #MeToo campaign, playing on their 30-year tagline mentioned earlier by replacing it with, “The best men can be.”
The advert itself has a run of clips of news that report the #MeToo movement. Interspersed with images showing sexism portrayed as comedy.  Mansplaining in the boardroom to make women feel talked down to. Violence between young boys and boys bullying each other. The powerful advert immediately went viral, pulling in 4 million YouTube hits within 48 hours. If this isn’t a marketing dream, then what is?

The criticism hasn’t just been severe, though. Many have absolutely praised Gillette’s bold move, with the daughter of Martin Luther King, Bernice King. She wrote, “This commercial isn’t anti-male, it’s pro-humanity,” Gillette has simply asked men to make each other accountable for their actions. To support each other, to be better than inciting violence and encouraging sexism and intimidation and mansplaining. It hasn’t been well-received by everyone, though, with Gillette being accused of jumping on the “men are horrible” bandwagon.
Many have enjoyed watching the fall out from the campaign on social media. Believing anything that ruffles the feathers of Piers Morgan and Donald Trump must be a good thing and so has supported Gillette for that reason alone. When it comes to marketing, though, Gillette is a brand that has needed the chance to evolve – and boy, did they take that chance! They have used their campaign to create conversation, debates, and opportunities for other men to stand up and agree. They do not want to be portrayed as toxic.
Toxic masculinity isn’t just damaging to women, but it’s damaging to men, too. Gillette has picked this up with grace, pulling apart the media pressure on men to “be a man” in the traditional, long-taught sense. It’s 2019, and there is no place for emotional disconnection and objectifying women and resolving conflicts with violence.