Why Gillette's campaign against toxic masculinity has missed the mark

Gillette has launched a new marketing campaign, "The best men can be," with an ad that has become viral.

The advertisement begins by describing boys nagging other boys, harbaded women and called to talk to the cat, and a group of men claiming that "boys will be boys". Gillette then asks if it's "the best one a man can get". The rest of the ad describes men who react against the bad behavior of other men.

It is for the least polarizing.

On one side, the campaign is praised for having fought male stereotypes and challenged men to be better.

On the other hand, some say that Gillette is likely to silence customers who think that the brand capitalizes shamelessly on the # MeToo movement and practices a policy of "left". There are already calls for the brand to be boycotted.

So why did this announcement cause such a big divide?

In my research on corporate use of prosocial messages, negative reactions are usually due to a combination of the cause itself, a bad fit between the brand and the cause, and the mistrust of the true motivations of the brand. business.

An authentic matching account

Businesses have supported various social problems for decades. Marriott, for example, organized fundraisers in the 1970s for the March of Dimes, a non-profit organization working to improve the health of mothers and babies.

Today, customers expect businesses to represent something. According to an Edelman Earned report published in 2018, nearly two-thirds of consumers believe that companies should take a stand on social or political issues.

However, studies have shown that, for corporate activism to be well received, the cause must generally be related to the company's product line or brand.

This can happen when a company and its sustained cause share similar values, such as Disney's partnership with Make-A-Wish for its "Share Your Ears" campaign. Both organizations strive to bring joy to the children. Or it can happen when a company supports a cause that matches its brand – think of Nike's "Find Your Greatness" campaign, which aims to reduce teenage obesity through fitness.

If pairing does not seem authentic, consumers might wonder if the company is simply trying to make a profit rather than actually defending the cause. For example, the public questioned Pepsi's attempt to address racial tensions with his advertising for 2017 in Kendall Jenner, in part because the couple seemed so insincere: what is a box of Pepsi has to do with racial problems and police brutality?

This is not the message or the cause – it's the delivery

The problem with Gillette's announcement is not that she supports a cause, nor even that Gillette supports the particular cause of toxic masculinity.

In fact, Gillette is not the only men-centric brand to have recently challenged male stereotypes. Just for Men launched its "Better Man" campaign in October 2018, which encourages men to be more compbadionate and compbadionate. In 2014, Dove Men + Care launched its "Care makes the man stronger" campaign, which explores the different ways men define masculinity.

Gillette, however, takes a more aggressive approach.

The ad immediately sets the tone with a burning question, starting with a series of stories about the # MeToo movement. He then addresses a host of issues – intimidation, harbadment, badism – related to toxic masculinity. About halfway through Gillette calls on men to abandon dated models of masculinity and fight the stereotype. He ends up galvanizing an entire generation with the mighty line "because the boys who are watching today will be the men of tomorrow".

Although the advertising and its message are poignant, its spread is false: it forces a whole consumer base to support the # MeToo movement and to positively badociate its brand with this cause.

But people do not like what we tell them what to do; for the same reason, advertisements rarely insist that people buy their product. Instead, they will show how a product can be part of people's lives, or even improve it.

So, why, perhaps, would a viewer wonder, would a business feel emboldened enough to suggest that its customers should do more for a particular cause?

It should be noted that Gillette truly seems to support the cause. The company donates $ 1 million to nonprofit organizations that support positive forms of masculinity.

But viewers could question the motives of the company because advertising does not directly link the cause to what the brand is recognized for: shaving and grooming.

Should this be of importance? Surprisingly, this is the case.

In a study I conducted on how consumers perceive messages about women's empowerment, highlighting the product – and linking it to the message – seemed to resonate better.

For example, a GMC campaign showing women using Dodge Ram trucks for a variety of activities, from working on a ranch to collecting children at school, was well received. But a Verizon advertisement inviting girls to get into science did not resonate either, as the only clue that it was an advertisement for Verizon was a Verizon logo at the end.

Gillette takes a stand, as do many companies.

They just did not execute the message correctly.