Interesting watching this story develop. This was no accident and these things don't get published without extensive vetting. Somebody in the Gillette marketing department thought it was a good idea. The script had to be approved, the film run through focus groups to test their reactions, and the final version signed off on by the director of advertising. Anyone in the pertinent Gillette management chain who pretends to be surprised is likely lying.
Focus groups can lead you astray, to be sure, especially if they are recruited from a sample that does not reflect existing customers as well as prospective ones. And if bias is introduced by discouraging negative responses, which is all too easy in a group situation and requires a good deal of effort on the part of group facilitators to avoid. So while it's possible that the volcanic reaction this ad has evinced is a surprise through incompetence and poor decision making, it's far more likely it was well-known and its stimulation purely intentional.
How long-lasting the damage will be remains to be seen, but it is highly unlikely that it will pass quickly. And this is one product line for which men do make the majority of the purchase decisions (there are others: firearms, sporting equipment, pickup trucks come to mind). It is difficult to imagine an entire management chain deliberately harming sales, at least if it intends to remain employed, but not one that is intimidated into going along by an activist minority that doesn't care. "Get woke, go broke" is something that happens to somebody else, until it isn't.
Correct. And given the profit margins of razors (which is quite high), this could actually make a substantial impact on Proctor & Gamble's bottom line (cleaning products, toiletries and food products actually have a fairly low profit margin considering the huge competition worldwide).
She has other stupid videos:
1st video: "Womandkind"
Just watch the message, the words, and you'll find out pretty quickly that, in her world, women have no agency and are only the object of oppression (by men, we suppose). When talking about bras and breasts, she puts a radical feminist message - through words - on top of the image and sound.
2nd video: "You think you're a man"
This was made to address the rise in the use of steroids (or alcohol related violence according to a different source) in Australia, apparently. But how does she think those numbers are justified? Unemployment? Depression? Divorce? Increase in the cost of life in general? Women? Motherhood (single mothers)? Nahhh! Of course not.
The reasons, in this video, are:
1) Fathers that hit their children (boys) and
2) boys that are bullies.
You don't see a single female in the video who interacts with the victim. Not one. It stinks of misandry.
3rd video: "Uber - effortless night"
Well, here everything is straight forward. The ideal "man" for her is the soy-boy dude from the video, who's made fun of by the girl, treated like a joke, behaves like a stupid kid and is called a "man".
So now you know that a radical feminazi was put in charge of marketing at Gillette. Hopefully the boycotts that result will put them out of business and her out of a job.