SHOCKER: Surprise: Genius behind man-hating Gillette ad is a radical feminist.
Carpentered by Grey Advertising for Proctor and Gamble’s razors company, it does not detail product attributes, encourage brand loyalty, instill warm feelings in buyers, or even show basic respect for consumers. Instead, the grimly lecturing spot declares masculinity itself toxic, a peril to decent society.
“Is this the best a man can get? Is it?” asks the painfully serious narrator, as a wrongdoing slideshow passes by. “We can’t hide from it. It’s been going on far too long. We can’t laugh it off, making the same old excuses.”
“I guess the guy at the ad agency missed the lesson about not taking a dump on the people you want to buy your stuff,” cracked comedian Steven Crowder.
“The guy at the ad agency” is actually philosophically unpleasant feminist Kim Gehrig. Hiring her to court the male market is like expecting to accrue impressive rainbow flag sale numbers with spiels from Farrakhan.
Harsh but fair. Plus:
Gehrig’s new Gillette effort states her bias boldly by intercutting allusions to abusive acts with images of romantic heterosexuality.
A black-and-white cartoon scene that flashes past shows men whistling at a woman. In another scant bit, a guy sees a pretty female pedestrian. He steps after her but is restrained by a companion. “Not cool,” the restrainer admonishes.
Expressions of attraction and related pursuits are natural. They lead to humans reproducing – which is how Gehrig got here, though she might be horrified to learn that.
Adweek pronounced Gehrig’s group libel the “Ad of the Week.” Gehrig’s efforts were also recognized by Best Ads on TV.
Therein lies an issue worth note. Fox News host Greg Gutfeld tweeted: “the only ones lauding the Gillette ad work in media/advertising. everyone else sees it for what it is: a smarmy, condescending virtue signal aimed at the hardworking decent men they have been price-gouging for years.”
At this writing, Gillette’s YouTube posting of “We Believe” has received 40,000 “thumbs down” votes and only 4,300 positive ratings.
As I said yesterday, this is another example of how the people running American institutions now tend to perform for an audience of their peers rather than focus on doing their jobs.