Aloha from Portland.
You may have heard that Gillette released a new ad this week tackling the subject of toxic masculinity and the harm it does. The spot by Grey has, generally, been received well in its opening up of a discussion that hasn’t quite bubbled up to the surface in a big way until now: toxic masculinity.
By way of reminder, Gillette’s parent company, P&G, was behind one of the most powerful ads in recent memory, “The Talk,” which addressed racial bias and the myriad issues African-Americans face in America. The brand’s respected chief brand officer, Marc Pritchard, is not afraid to use the company’s various brands to make a point.
In the case of this new Gillette ad, two schools of thought have emerged, somewhat predictably. The first, more productive one is “this is great, and I’m glad we’re talking about this.” The second is akin to what happened to Nike after debuting their Colin Kaepernick ad: boycott them!
The latter’s avatar, also something predictable, is British blowhard Piers Morgan who went to Twitter to get the venom flowing and addressed the ad on his morning show. Elsewhere, men (especially in America) decided that it was time to throw their razors into the toilet. I’m no expert, but it’s probably not a good idea to try to flush down pieces of metal and plastic.
Regardless of which side anyone is on, it’s good that these things keep happening—and that brands and their agencies are willing to be genuinely bold, a word that, in places, has regained its true meaning after being stripped away by the marketing buzzword industrial complex. Ads like this are not going to make everyone happy—and there are other cases of brands pivoting their masculine messaging—but it’s a new world where the brave and sane will be rewarded.
(And we would be remiss in not mentioning Patrick Coffee’s excellent appearance on Nightline to discuss Gillette.)
In other news …
Chevron’s global media business is in play after 16 years with WPP.
P&G has a new media model that will (gulp) take more work in-house.
Worth a read: Erik Oster dug into how production companies are affecting agency business.
Also worth a read: Jason Lynch and A.J. Katz from Adweek's TV/Media team did a remarkable job highlighting the 30 TV Newsers that fueled the industry the past 15 years.
A fun one: The elevators at Havas HKX Village in London were gussied up by the company’s Conran Design Group. The disco may be our favorite.
Quite a G-Turn (it’s a skateboarding trick): Streetwear designer and champion skateboarder Benny Gold is closing his iconic San Francisco shop to join … Goodby Silverstein & Partners.
And, of course, you’ll want to keep up with Adweek's Super Bowl Tracker. We’ve been adding a bunch of things as we get closer to the game.
On behalf of all of us on the Adweek agencies team, have a wonderful extended weekend, and we encourage you to take a moment to reflect on the sacrifices and contributions made by Dr. Martin Luther King.
We’ll see you back here next week. And, as always, feel free to share your agency news with us—I can be reached at doug dot zanger at adweek dot com.
