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Gillette's 'toxic masculinity' ad haunts P&G as shaving giant takes $8B writedown

Kinetic

Vivere est militare!
Gillette's infamous "toxic masculinity" ad may cost Procter & Gamble more than anyone imagined in January.

The year that Gillette launched its "We Believe" campaign and asked "Is this the best a man can get?" has coincided with P&G's $8 billion non-cash writedown for the shaving giant.

-snip-

"Perhaps P&G isn't willing to come forward yet with the fact that they made a monumental error in assuming men would take the 'toxic masculinity' commercial well, but they should soon," Mr. Morse wrote Wednesday for the conservative website. "The brand is damaged enough to lose billions, and men aren't coming back, especially with cheaper alternatives embracing men for who they are and not assuming the worst about them."

Source: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jul/31/gillettes-toxic-masculinity-ad-haunts-pg-as-shavin/

The thing itself.
 
The year that Gillette launched its "We Believe" campaign and asked "Is this the best a man can get?" has coincided with P&G's $8 billion non-cash writedown for the shaving giant.
Let's see...

One: Washington Times, AKA barely better than a tabloid.
Two: are you seriously backing a financial analysis that sums up an entire year if not more of financial operations to a single ad, without actually looking at the investments of the company or P&G, at their strategic shifts or at anything a simple due diligence would work on if done by interns? Seriously?

That's barely better than conspiracy theory, in that it takes two barely related elements and tries to push strong correlation between each other to push one's political opinions (AKA peddling to the ZenoGuy crowd). Like, say... if I looked at Detroit when its economy collapsed and pointed at some city hall's sub-office decision and claimed everything came from it.
 
While that doesn't sound completely implausible*, how do they know that without the ad campaign it wouldn't have been $10B or something? These kinds of ads are basically intended to create outrage, and it tends to work in making money (the possibility that corporations actually give a crap about social issues one way or the other is a bit too implausible to consider seriously). The exposure they bring usually outweighs the section of customers they anger. For example, it worked for Nike and Keurig.

*If it's actually the case, it would be more an indication that the gimmick of generating social drama is not working as it used to, which might be the case as that's what always happens to gimmicks in the long run.
 
While that doesn't sound completely implausible*, how do they know that without the ad campaign it wouldn't have been $10B or something? These kinds of ads are basically intended to create outrage, and it tends to work in making money (the possibility that corporations actually give a crap about social issues one way or the other is a bit too implausible to consider seriously). The exposure they bring usually outweighs the section of customers they anger. For example, it worked for Nike and Keurig.

*If it's actually the case, it would be more an indication that the gimmick of generating social drama is not working as it used to, which might be the case as that's what always happens to gimmicks in the long run.
To be fair, rage marketing and the like is very market specific. I'm not about to correlate a lose like this with the ad and such. but if you asked me if Gillette sold the right sort of merchandise in the right industry for this sort of marketing to work. I'd give a cautious no, nowadays it seems that these kindof 'premium' razor brands have seen a lot of up and coming challenge, and with a cursory look, seemingly always depended on a strong marketing ability to sell users 'premium' sorta razors and the like, with all their sorts of fancy gizmos.
 
Uh-huh. It was the ad. The ad that almost nobody saw because of this being the cord-cutting era with adblock enabled, but there was a hot second of outrage among a small group of consumers. That was the only reason why they took a shave to their business (pun intended).

But what if we look at a source that is not a half-step away from incest with Alex Jones?


The consumer products giant gave two reasons for the write-down. First, the company said that currency devaluations since the carrying values were first established in 2005 played a significant role. Over the last decade, currency has hurt its global business.

"You've got here a business with a very broad global footprint, and particularly with the year that we have just been through, that impacts that value assessment," Moeller said.

P&G's second reason for the write-down is the market contraction of blades and razors, primarily in developed markets. In countries like the United States, growing beards is more popular, leading fewer men to buy razors. Gillette held a 52.8% market share of men's razors and blades in the U.S. last year, according to Euromonitor.

Additionally, Gillette has faced competition from disruptive upstarts like Dollar Shave Club, now owned by Unilever, and Harry's.

Huh. Market shifts, currency devaluations, and fewer people using the products due to ongoing grooming trends. That makes sen- I mean, IT MUST HAVE BEEN THAT ONE COMMERCIAL!!1!ZOMG1!

Oh, and nobody cares. Share price is up because forecasts are good, and it turned out that they did better than originally expected. Turns out that when you make a single large correction to a business the entire brand does not immediately collapse.
 
Uh-huh. It was the ad. The ad that almost nobody saw because of this being the cord-cutting era with adblock enabled, but there was a hot second of outrage among a small group of consumers. That was the only reason why they took a shave to their business (pun intended).

But what if we look at a source that is not a half-step away from incest with Alex Jones?




Huh. Market shifts, currency devaluations, and fewer people using the products due to ongoing grooming trends. That makes sen- I mean, IT MUST HAVE BEEN THAT ONE COMMERCIAL!!1!ZOMG1!

Oh, and nobody cares. Share price is up because forecasts are good, and it turned out that they did better than originally expected. Turns out that when you make a single large correction to a business the entire brand does not immediately collapse.
I imagine that the rise of Dollar Shave Club is proving to be a mighty shave into Gillette's profits by undercutting their operating costs as a smaller business. Unless Gillette slashes prices to compete with their rival over their sheared market, one can only expect further shredding of their bottom line.
 
It's probably not just an ad, but that ad is possibly a symptom of some more fundamental policies of the company, which may or may not have an effect on their profit margins.
 
It's probably not just an ad, but that ad is possibly a symptom of some more fundamental policies of the company, which may or may not have an effect on their profit margins.

The ad breaks all the rules of advertising. You don't insult your customers. Never ever. It never makes good business sense.

I mean, why would you market for goony beard-men if they don't shave? :ROFLMAO:
 
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