Gillette commercial: Much criticism comes from women
According to an analysis by the data analytics firm MavenMagnet, 37 percent of women reacted negatively to the controversial Gillette ad released in the middle of the month.
While the advertising attracted a great deal of attention, this was clearly negative overall compared to other brand campaigns in the recent past, reports the creative industry magazine Campaign Live.
Shortly after its release, it was clear that the Gillette ad, which is directed against classic aggressive masculinity and calls on men to behave more positively, did not go down well with self-proclaimed true men (Werbewoche.ch reported). To gauge the general reaction, MavenMagnet analyzed hundreds of thousands of online reactions from YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to comments on news sites and forums. "If Gillette wanted to stimulate conversation, the 920,000 posts that we analyzed proved successful," says company founder Aditya Ghuwalewala.
According to him, however, it might come as a surprise to the company that so many women reacted badly to the ad. "High negativity was driven by the perception that Gillette is unfair when it comes to gender rights and skepticism that the company wants to bring about real change," says Ghuwalewala. Gillette does indeed lack credibility. Especially in English-speaking countries, many women had once again pointed out the #PinkTax, i.e. the higher prices of the pink Venus models of razors compared to men's models.
According to MagnetMaven, 64% of the online buzz following the ad was negative and 34% positive. The net reaction (percent positive minus percent negative) was therefore minus 30 percent. This is 104 percent worse than the median of 2640 other brand campaigns that the company has tracked over the past two years - in other words, extremely negative by advertising standards.
It remains to be seen whether this will have a negative impact on business. Only 43% of consumers are against the brand's advertising strategy, while 55% are actually in favor of it. Some even think that it will ultimately benefit significantly. "For all the men who unfortunately don't get it and say they'll never buy Gilette again, there are probably five more women who will buy Gilette for themselves or their partner in the future," says one comment.
