Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Gillette's attempt at sensitivity backfires

Razor maker Gillette has experienced a huge backlash to its latest ad campaign, which tries to drag the company and its macho image kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Replacing the decades old tagline "the best a man can get" with "the best men can be", the new ad contrasts traditional aggressive male behaviour with a more sensitive vision of masculinity.
Well, it doesn't seem to have gone down too well with Gillette's core clientele, and has garnered about ten times more dislikes than likes (I don't have any stats on how many of each were male and how many female). An extraordinary number of complaints appear to be heart-felt grievances about how Gillette was considered a last bastion of support for "masculine men", who clearly feel themselves to be under siege from an epidemic of sensitivity in the aftermath of #MeToo and #TimesUp.
Who knew that people took ads so seriously? Or that they even paid attention to them, for that matter? And who know the undercurrent of toxic masculinity was quite so vigorous and tenacious? Just shows how much I know about men...

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