Gillette has followed up its “toxic masculinity” campaign with one that looks likely to gain even more media attention, a transgender Canadian being taught to shave by his dad.
A far cry from Dollar Shave Club.
Lots of people have liked it on social media so far – but will it sell more razors?
Is that the point though?
Nicely done, by Grey presumably.
MAA creative scale: 7.5.
Gillette sell razors. It follows that 99.999 % of their customers are men, with beards that vary from the extra-tough to the once a week shave. They can be young and old, straight, gay, black, white and so on. However, a miniscule proportion of them will be transgender people in the throes of transitioning. So why would you make a film about one shaving for the first time? And why would you pick someone with the sparse facial hair the cruel might call bum fluff? It doesn’t tell me about how good the razors are at dealing with even the toughest beards, it doesn’t have any empathy with the vast majority of its customers. Following on from their ‘toxic masculinity’ ad that set out to insult its customer base, all I can think is that Gillette is hoping to drive itself into oblivion…