Business, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Gillette

23 Comments

Thoughts on their attempt to get woke, go broke:

Gillette has learned that in [current year], it’s not enough for a company to make a product that people want. It’s not enough to make them feel inadequate about themselves, and then sell them the supposed cure for that inadequacy. Consumers, men in particular, must be made to feel worthless. They have to be reminded that their needs and desires are wrong under any circumstances, that their instincts are loathsome, that their very existence is a malignancy, and that they’re responsible for all the world’s ills whether they want to admit it or not.

Now give them your money, you piece of garbage.

There are a lot of alternatives.

[Update a few minutes later]

Wow, they’ve even turned Piers Morgan into a men-rights activist.

[Wednesday-morning update]

The toxic mission to re-engineer men.

[Late-morning update]

More thoughts from Lileks:

The first half of the ad is stupid – all these guys staring in the mirror, wondering “Am I a straw man who actually laughed at that ‘Married with Children’ episode in 1999?” The clueless, fatal association of grilling with indifferent lunkhead men, the sort of detail that could only come from men who write long essays for Medium about how they feel alienated from grilling and always get nervous sweat when they have to go to a backyard party, because there are like, these dudes, standing over the fire? And it’s so, like, primal? god none of these people ever listen to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me you can just tell but I guess I can stand here and joke while I drink this beer because airquotes it’s what guys do airquotes

Here’s the thing, though. I am not completely outraged. Take care of your kids, set a good example, don’t catcall – sure. Yes. Men who do these things will surely agree. Men who do not are unlikely to be moved to behave otherwise. But men who do these things already will not find the commercial supportive; they’re more likely to be irritated that someone presumes they have to be told these things.

Yes.

[Friday-morning update]

Some razor advice from Stephen Green.

[Bumped]

23 thoughts on “Gillette”

  1. The main capture (or the most common one anyway) from the commercial is of the guys in a row behind their grills. Does anyone else find it weird that not only did the director want every guy posed with their arms crossed, but also with every other guy’s arms crossed in opposing fashion. That is, the first guy is right arm over left, then left over right, etc., all the way down the line. I mean he (the director, almost certainly a he) had to have explicitly directed that. “All right guys, now cross your arms. Great. Now you, switch them up. No, you’re good. You, switch up.” And so on.

    So the image of a guy standing up with his arms crossed says: Patriarchy. Innate superiority. Domination. Rape. Etc. But the director for some reason didn’t want them all going the same way. To the point he specifically instructed them to switch every other one over.

    One. Weird. Dude.

    1. People who create advertising are usually failed artists and well to the left. The alternate arm crossing was an artistic decision to create a particular pleasing pattern. The message of the piece was from people who feel intense guilt for pushing capitalist products on people who could get the same thing for less money and are subsequently robbing them. To compensate such companies usually make a public service ad about giving some bucks to save sick children, but were idiots enough to attack their own customers with feminist boilerplate.

  2. Poor Gillette. They’ve gone from The Best a Man Can Get™ to no better than a mere man deserves. I can’t even remember the last Gillette product I ever bought, and apparently I’m far from alone.

  3. This is how it was in the Old USSR…everything – EVERYTHING is a propaganda tool of the state…of “Right Think”.

    My Gillette shaver and blades get used and those will be the last I’ll ever buy. And I’m going to make sure they know it.

  4. I’m guessing that most men who like and approve of the ad are your stereotype low-testosterone super-“evolved” pro-feminist “liberals,” who stand foursquare against any kind of bullying . . . except, except of course, when the bully is the State.

    Paraphrasing Orwell*, gentle “liberals” sleep peacefully in their beds, dreaming their coercive and statist dreams, because rough men stand ready to do violence to make their coercive and statist dreams a reality.

    *Or whoever actually said the “rough men” quote.

    2. There was a big difference in comments on their Tweet and on YouTube. It really illustrates how different those audiences are and how Twitter is not representative of the populace. Youtube isn’t either but it is more so than Twitter.

      Funny thing is that they were deleting comments on Youtube and they were still overwhelmingly negative but on Twitter they can’t delete others tweets and were getting more positive comments from the wolke.

  5. There are a lot of good people there that manufacture product still in the USA. that no doubt had no say in this marketing(?) campaign. I feel bad for them.

    I remember a different kind of “woke” about a decade ago called “Promise Keepers”. Remember them? Thoughts? How would you characterize the qualitative difference between that and now?

    2. It took me awhile to see the video and understand the hub bub. I use Gillette, but honestly, I’m overstocked with at least a 2 year supply. I can use one of their blade heads for months, and I got over brand 20 new ones. I also don’t use product, as I never needed it.

      To me, the biggest problem with the ad campaign is that it is puritanical. That’s fine, but I don’t see the connection with shaving. “Promise Keepers” was something you could join and go in knowing that it was about upholding morals and behaviors; if that is what you wanted. I just want my razor to give me a good shave. Gillette is welcome to become a brand with moral values. Chick Fil A also has moral values, so does a certain baker in Colorado. I’m fine with their choices. But you do risk alienating others that don’t share those values.

      In the meantime, Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s have ad campaigns that tell me how good their product works at a cheap price. I haven’t seen all their ads, but what I recall of them; they don’t use a lot of women models to sell their product. They also don’t have moral scripts for their ads. They just tell me it is a good product at a cheaper price. Seems a simple ad campaign, and sales suggest it is working.

      1. Chick-Fil-A doesn’t run any TV adds promoting their world view apart from the cows, who can’t spell and want you to spare their lives by eating the Chick-Fil-A product more often.

      2. I actually visited Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s yesterday just to check prices and I consider their stuff to be pretty expensive. It might be cheaper than buying Bic and Gillette items in the store but they are subscription based and their subscription model sends supplies FAR more rapidly than I can consume them. If their model works for others then awesome, but I am going to stick with going to the store when I need something.

        1. I don’t disagree. I thought their prices were not only a bit high, but that I didn’t need a new blade as often as they thought I did. Instead, 3 years ago I took advantage of this at Amazon when the sale price was $20 plus a coupon to save 5% more. The box is small, and two easily fit in a drawer. So I’m good for awhile.

          Now to ween myself off of Tide…

    3. There was a comment on the youtube video from someone claiming to be a P&G employee who said the corporate culture is dominated by the wolke. Said it was a miserable place to work.

      Promise Keepers wasn’t an ad campaign from a large corporation that mocked and bullied their customers. They were a voluntary organization vs the wolke, who force participation whether you want to or not. Any peer pressure was within their own group and the wolke exist to bully those outside their group (but also anyone who fails to leap the enthusiasm hurdles or change quickly enough when the group shifts beliefs.)

  8. P&G is huge so cutting ties wont be easy. I’m not sure if this is still true but a while back there were articles about razor companies not moving as many razors due to everyone having beards. This could be an intentional Ghostbusters hate marketing campaign to appeal to a narrow but devoted audience since the larger market has already shut them out.

    Also, Dollar Shave Club has their own woke commercials, they just aren’t as demeaning. But the one I saw was kind of well done. Men shave, women shave, and transvestites shave and the ad targeted all of those groups with out being offensive toward any one of them.

  9. That Gillette commercial was cringe worthy. I do not buy a lot of P&G products as it is. Good thing I switched from Gillette razors to electric shavers several years back.

  10. I’m trying to decide if I want to boycott P&G. I don’t buy many personal care products from them, but those include Oral-B toothbrushes and floss.

Comments are closed.