Gillette is getting a lot of reaction to their new ad. The shaving company's latest spot touches on toxic masculinity, sexism in the workplace and the #MeToo movement, among other topics. "We can't hide from it," the ad's narrator posits over imagery depicting patriarchal themes and cyberbullying. "It's been going on far too long." "But something changed," the nearly 2-minute commercial continues, displaying news coverage that appears to depict women coming forward, something that has become commonplace in the time since #MeToo began to really gain traction. "There will be no going back," the spot notes. "Because the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow." Watch for yourself below. The video, which has been viewed over five million times on YouTube, has drawn both praise and ire from those on the internet. Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Melissa Fumero was among those who enjoyed the ad, tweeting, "This ad is amazing and made me cry. Bravo @Gillette for taking a stand. This is the kind of world I want my son to grow up in. To all the men offended by this... take a good hard look in the mirror pal and ask yourself why." This ad is amazing and made me cry. Bravo @Gillette for taking a stand. This is the kind of world I want my son to grow up in. To all the men offended by this... take a good hard look in the mirror pal and ask yourself why. https://t.co/Ytyi5R01Nr — Melissa Fumero (@melissafumero) January 15, 2019 Not everyone was so high on the ad (many of whom flooded Fumero's Twitter comments, prompting her to quote tweet the hate she received, writing, "Congrats! You’re part of the problem! "). Congrats! You’re part of the problem! https://t.co/VHt0KQKZSQ — Melissa Fumero (@melissafumero) January 15, 2019 Conservative TV personality Piers Morgan sent out several tweets against the ad, including one that read, "It’s @Gillette who need to be reminded that men can be good people too, without their patronising guidance." Terry Crews, who has been vocal about his own #MeToo story and who is actually featured in the spot, didn't seem to mind Morgan's criticism of the commercial, tweeting, "Judge me by the enemies I’ve made." “Judge me by the enemies I’ve made.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt https://t.co/xD9JMgywO9 — terry crews (@terrycrews) January 15, 2019 "You're no enemy of mine, Terry. I thought the abuse you suffered was appalling," Morgan responded. "I just don't like this new @Gillette ad & it's inference that all men are like the one who attacked you." You're no enemy of mine, Terry. I thought the abuse you suffered was appalling. I just don't like this new @Gillette ad & it's inference that all men are like the one who attacked you. https://t.co/xTbmkod2sn — Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 15, 2019 Meanwhile, the back-and-forth may continue if Gillette puts out a follow-up ad for the Super Bowl this year. Watch below for outtakes from Chris Pratt's Super Bowl spot last year. Watch Chris Pratt's Hilarious Super Bowl Commercial Outtakes This video is unavailable because we were unable to load a message from our sponsors. If you are using ad-blocking software, please disable it and reload the page. ADDITIONAL CONTENT: Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr Star In The Cutest Commercial During the Super Bowl LII Watch Every 2018 Super Bowl Commercial Released So Far! Related Gallery<doc-sep>Angry consumers are boycotting Gillette over its new ad. On Monday, Gillette released a new commercial called "We Believe," showing men and boys bullying each other and engaging in sexual harassment. The #MeToo-inspired commercial encourages men to "say the right thing" and "act the right way." Some customers are now throwing away their razors in protest and posting about it on social media. Gillette is facing a lot of backlash over its new ad. The Procter & Gamble-owned brand released a new commercial called "We Believe" on Monday. The ad is meant to confront American culture, showing men and boys bullying each other and engaging in sexual harassment. Narration then encourages them to "say the right thing" and "act the right way." Read more: Gillette chastises men in a new commercial highlighting the #MeToo movement — and some are furious It continues over scenes of men changing their actions: "We can't hide from it. It has been going on far too long. We can't laugh it off. Making the same old excuses. But something finally changed. And there will be no going back. Because we ... We believe in the best in men. To say the right thing. To act the right way. Some already are, in ways big and small. But some is not enough. Because the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow." While some have praised the ad, it has caused an uproar among others. Some have taken to social media to say they are now boycotting the brand and have posted photos and videos of themselves discarding Gillette razors in protest: —Drew Van Roekel (@DrewVanRoekel1) January 16, 2019 In a statement to the press, Gary Coombe, the president of Procter & Gamble's global grooming business, said: "Gillette believes in the best in men — that by holding each other accountable, eliminating excuses for bad behavior, and supporting a new generation working toward their personal 'best,' we can deliver positive change that will matter for years to come."<doc-sep>Do brands have beliefs? This is a question we’re forced to ask today thanks to Gillette’s latest commercial. It was created by the New York-based ad agency Grey and is called “We Believe.” And what the century-old, multibillion-dollar razor company, owned by the health and personal care giant Procter & Gamble, purports to believe is this: Its longtime slogan, “The Best a Man Can Get,” is ripe for an update. In the pre-Super Bowl ad — released three weeks before the Super Bowl, as part of the YouTube-era rat race to get advance write-ups and possibly a viral hit during peak-commercial-watching season — Gillette shows young boys bullying each other and beating each other up, older men touching women’s shoulders in business meetings, and suburban dads lined up at a never-ending row of charcoal grills saying, “Boys will be boys,” over and over while watching incidents of light violence. Join the Vox Video Lab Go behind the scenes. Chat with creators. Support Vox video. Become a member of the Vox Video Lab on YouTube today. (Heads up: You might be asked to sign in to Google first.) The voiceover poses the question: “Is this the best a man can get?” No! The commercial pivots. One handsome 20-something man asks another handsome 20-something man to stop ogling a woman in the street. One young dad asks his daughter to say, “I’m strong.” Another young dad is moved to break up a brutal fight between children in a parking lot. That is the best a man can get. The ad has caused controversy across the comments sections of YouTube and the never-ending hellfeed of Twitter, in large part because it has offended many men. Plenty of the responses are sexist and racist, with dozens complaining that the ad makes white men in particular look bad and arguing that, basically, there is no such thing as “toxic masculinity,” but rather a tragic lack of masculine influences in schools and homes because women are so bad at holding on to husbands and selfishly insist on being the majority of public school teachers. “Men are saying, we feel marginalized, criticized and accused rather than feeling inspired empowered and encouraged,” RedPeak branding firm executive Susan Cantor told the Wall Street Journal. Pankaj Bhalla, Gillette’s brand director for North America, responded to criticism of the ad, in the Journal, saying “This is an important conversation happening, and as a company that encourages men to be their best, we feel compelled to both address it and take action of our own. We are taking a realistic look at what’s happening today, and aiming to inspire change by acknowledging that the old saying ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ is not an excuse.” Men who are angry about a commercial and calling for a boycott of a razor company in the comments of a YouTube post are also writing things like, “Gillette is desperately deleting critical comments for fear that people will know about what men are saying about this radical feminist advert﻿.” It is inherently nonsensical to use feminism to sell men’s grooming products, or any products These arguments make no sense whatsoever. Still, this ad is a misfire, in that it is a blatant attempt to make money off a painful and ongoing collective action that has not even an indirect relationship to face razors. Is it likely that there were people at Gillette with good intentions and people at Grey who wanted to help realize them? Absolutely! However, it is inherently nonsensical to use feminism to sell men’s grooming products, or any products, as feminism is a political movement bent on dismantling current structures of power, which likely includes multibillion-dollar corporations like Procter & Gamble. And unfortunately, it is impossible, maybe irresponsible, for a commercial to try to explain centuries of societal glorification of male violence or to make a compelling argument that proves women are people. This is an advertisement set to air during a football game on primetime television, and within those constraints, it can absolutely not depict — in a convincing way — the complex and never-ending story it seeks to profit from. (Not least because the only “crimes” against women it can reasonably show are catcalls and exaggerated butt honks.) This is not the first time a Procter & Gamble brand has attempted to sell personal hygiene items by situating them in dubious feminist narratives. It previously did so with the 2014 “Like a Girl” campaign, which promoted Always tampons and invited teenagers to “run like a girl” in order to demonstrate internalized misogyny. The company’s deodorant brand Secret also has a running “Stress Test” campaign, which shows women getting ready to confront sexism in business meetings. Gillette is not alone here, obviously. The temptation for brands to appear “woke” and engaged has escalated significantly in the Trump era. Last September, when Nike launched its 30th anniversary “Just Do It” campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, Sarah Banet-Weiser situated it in a history of “commodity activism,” writing for Vox: This practice merges consumer behavior with political or social goals. Whether challenging police brutality or questioning unattainable beauty norms, branding in our era has extended beyond a business model: It is now both reliant on and reflective of our most basic social and cultural relations. … Individual consumers act politically by purchasing particular brands over others in a competitive marketplace, where specific brands are attached to political aims and goals. Commodity activism can sometimes be good for business, she argues, but it can easily backfire. Female empowerment may be a fairly innocuous political motive, but criticizing men directly? Way too far. This is not the first time “toxic masculinity” has appeared in men’s grooming product advertising, and it’s not the first time men have lost their cool about it either. Please do not make me choose between a billion dollar company leveraging feminism for sales and men so insecure they think an ad for razors is threatening to their identity — Jaya Saxena (@jayasax) January 15, 2019 In a battle between the fragile egos of men who watch and respond viscerally to commercials and the bottom line of a massive company, it’s tempting (and entirely acceptable) to not care about the winner. But it’s also worth remembering that Gillette’s women’s brand, Venus, is best known for its “I’m Your Venus” commercials, which promise already tan and clean-shaven women that their new razor blades will make them “feel like a goddess.” Recently, venture capitalist Mike Dodd described the brand to Vox, calling it “an afterthought brand” based on “a ’60s ad man” idea of what women want. “It’s right there in the tagline,” he said. “You know, the best a man can get.” Upstart Gillette competitor Harry’s — originally a direct-to-consumer brand, now with huge installations at Target and Walmart — recently launched the women’s razor brand Flamingo, in direct competition with the DTC startup Billie, both of which are marketed around making razors functional and cool and encouraging women to shave “when they feel like it,” without paying more than men do for tools that perform a fairly uninteresting task. A decade ago, Gillette held 70 percent of the global market share for razors, and now it holds 54 percent. Those sales didn’t disappear; they went to those newer, savvier companies that don’t have 100 years of history making women feel bad about body hair and talking about men’s facial hair routines as if they were matters of import and action on the scale of a Fast & Furious movie. Now, it appears, the company would like those customers back. Correction: “We Believe” is a digital-only campaign, which will not air on TV as previously implied.<doc-sep>
After three decades of touting Gillette razors as part of being an alpha male, Procter & Gamble is doing an about-face with an ad that has the consumer-products company jumping into into the cultural wars with both feet. A play on its 30-year tagline "The Best A Man Can Get," Gillette's new "The Best Men Can Be" campaign features a nearly two-minute ad showing men intervening to stop fights between boys, and berating others of their gender for saying sexually inappropriate things to females in public. While there are plenty of "issue-based, ideologically-grounded, cultural branding type" of ads out there, Gillette's is unusual in terms of how direct the messaging is, Robert Kozinets, a scholar of marketing and consumer culture at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, told CBS MoneyWatch. Gillette said in a news release announcing the campaign that the company has a "responsibility to make sure we are promoting positive, attainable, inclusive and healthy versions on what it means to be a man." Gillette included a pledge to donate $1 million annually for the next three years to a nonprofit devoted to helping men "achieve their personal 'best.'" The Boys and Girls Club of America will be the first recipient, according to Adweek. As with Nike's controversial advertising campaign featuring former NFL star Colin Kaepernick, Gillette's "The Best Men Can Be" campaign inspired backlash on social media and calls for a boycott of its products. British TV personality Piers Morgan was among the higher-profile objectors to the ad, posting, "this absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity." Christina Sommers, a scholar at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, took to Twitter to slam both the ad and a prominent liberal arts college in Ohio. Help! Police! Gillette has been hijacked by the Oberlin College Gender Studies Collective. https://t.co/lCMNQ3ofii — Christina Sommers (@CHSommers) January 15, 2019 Released on Sunday, the video's YouTube page as of Tuesday afternoon had 343,000 dislikes and 83,000 likes. Still, it remains to be seen whether that initial negative outpouring will impact sales for a conglomerate that generated $66.8 billion in revenue in 2018. If Nike's decision to feature an athlete known for kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality is any guide, Procter & Gamble and its Gillette division may not have much to worry about, as Nike's stock and sales surged in the wake of its September ad campaign featuring Kaepernick. Kozinets agreed, saying even negative reviews can be a positive when it comes to drawing interest. "Given that most advertising is ignored, or about some boring functionality such as shaving cream that makes your skin 17 percent softer, this is already a win for P&G," he said. That victory could be seen in some tweets that had both men and women praising the ad, including one from a mother saying her son had no problem with it.