Go Woke, Go Broke?

The Groan on the Gillette furore.

Gillette’s new advert has sharply divided the internet with its critique of toxic masculinity, after suggesting that men in 2019 could be doing better in some areas. The campaign has been met with outrage in some quarters and triggered a meltdown among so-called men’s rights activists, a typically sensitive bunch.

Quite apart from the staggering lack of self-awareness as shown in that last remark, it is not up to companies to lecture us on anything. Their role is to make stuff for us to buy. Not go all progressive. Let’s put it his way, I will never buy a Gillette product again. Ever. Under any circumstances.

You see, people – the vast majority out there in the real world  – aren’t into progressive politics and don’t see things through the filter of identity politics like they do in Guardian Towers. Which is why there has been the backlash. And, no, it’s not because people are sensitive, it’s because people want Gillette to make razors so that they can shave with them – not to be lectured. And, did you notice the casual racism in the video? Just in case you didn’t, all those nasty toxic males were white (with one token exception). And when woke men stepped in following the lecture on how we are toxic, they were all BAME. It was so fucking obvious, no one could miss it.

Thing is, telling your customer base that there is something wrong with them, that they are toxic, is not a sensible move. Especially given that it is a simple matter for those customers to take their business elsewhere, which is what I shall be doing.

Still, the brains behind the campaign will undoubtedly be pleased at the huge amount of attention they have generated. The ad’s success means we will likely be seeing a lot more men’s products tackling modern gender politics soon. Here’s what they should look like.

I suppose massively condemned to the point where Gillette were having to remove down-votes and negative comments is a success. Oh, yeah, I get it, no publicity is bad publicity. Tell that to Gerald Ratner.

The article then goes on to suggest further products that could be given the same treatment. Well, I suppose so if you wish to damage your brand – which may well be the thought process going on here…

11 Comments

  1. Oh, yeah, I get it, no publicity is bad publicity. Tell that to Gerald Ratner.

    Told he’s not doing too bad these days.

    • I notice someone on that discussion tried to claim that men have been triggered. Nah, not really. A company that sells shaving products decides to insult its customer base. Robustly telling them to fuck right off, is hardly being triggered.

      Put it this way, Gillette can do as it pleases and I can buy my shaving products from someone else. Hardly triggered.

      • Oh, re a TW link to RHPS

        I’ve been to a few film & stage, always amazes us when some walk out – fools for not looking at/reading promo material.

        On fools, my mum & stepdad went to stage “Hair”, duh – £wasted.

        Torture Garden is similar

        Have you been to RHPS or TG?

        😛

  2. The word ‘woke’ always makes me think of the state of mind that we all had as teenagers when we thought that we knew everything and had it all worked out. The reason for this overconfidence was of course that we really knew next to nothing and we later realised that life is much more complicated than we thought it was. As for Gillette, I stopped using their stuff when Asda started selling their own version for about half the price.

      • Go and have a look at nourishing obscurity. Obviously a different gilette marketing department (not sure how old the pics are though)

  3. It would be interesting to follow what happens to Gillette sales following this ad campaign. If you spend a lot of money on advertising and sales fail to increase, or increase a little but not enough to cover the cost, I would think that it would count as a failure. Spend a lot of money on advertising that results in a massive drop in sales due to you having insulted your customers, that would be a bit of a disaster.

    • Their stock appears to have spiked, but that could be a temporary blip based on how much reaction they have generated. It’s sales that will matter in the long run.

  4. I just ordered some razors from Harry’s. I need some anyway and thought it would be fun if Harry’s reported a spike in sales.

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