Gillette’s “Woke” Ads Cost Company $8 Billion

This year, Gillette has gone all-in on pandering to the SJW crowd. First, in January, Gillette ran the short film “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be,” which focused on “toxic masculinity” and the #MeToo movement.  Then, in May, Gillette ran an ad depicting a man teaching his transgender son to shave.

The controversial campaign came as Gillette was losing market share, especially among millennials.

“It was pretty stark: we were losing share, we were losing awareness and penetration, and something had to be done,” [Gillette CEO Gary Coombe] said, adding they decided to “take a chance in an emotionally-charged way.”

Coombe said the marketing campaign ended up more controversial than he anticipated, but he doesn’t regret it – even though the decision caused the company to take an $8 billion hit.

“I don’t enjoy that some people were offended by the film and upset at the brand as a consequence.  That’s not nice and goes against every ounce of training I’ve had in this industry over a third of a century,” he said.  But I’m absolutely of the view now that for the majority of people to fall more deeply in love with today’s brands you have to risk upsetting a small minority and that’s what we’ve done.”

A few thoughts:

One, what does Coombe mean, it goes against his training that people didn’t like the film and therefore got upset with the brand?  If you put out an ad people strongly dislike, they’re not going to support your product.  Isn’t that Basic Marketing 101?

Two, in what world has this campaign upset a small minority but gained a majority?  The campaign lost the company $8 billion.  That’s billion, with a B.  It sounds like the campaign upset the majority by appeasing a small minority of SJWs.

Am I missing something here?

In summary, a company catered to the woke left, lost $8 BILLION, and the CEO says it was a good decision.

This is why I don’t want leftists in charge of the economy.