Remember Gillette’s controversial ad?

THE BEST A MAN CAN GET

The ad was aired once but attracted over 4 million views in less than 24 hours. 

HOW WAS THAT POSSIBLE?

Story

Ever wondered why every kid compels the parent to add late-night stories to their daily routine? Stories are magical. Unlike any other form of marketing, stories can urge individuals with a different perspective to listen.

”You are never going to kill storytelling because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.

Margaret Atwood

Gillette as you know it didn’t spring out of nowhere—it built its reputation on years of hard work, dedication and commitment. Gillette has and remains one of the few brands that know how to appeal to its customers through stories.

Curiosity

Even when we all know that curiosity always kills the cat—we won’t hesitate to jump right-in each time something sparks our intent for knowledge.

Curiosity is among the strongest human incentive.

Claude Hopkins

The last time Gillette aired an ad with the phrase ‘The best a man can get’ it became a premium brand. Gillette shares are backsliding; the competition is taking over. And a new ad just aired a few days into the new year. ‘The best a man can Get.’

Who wouldn’t want to experience the grip of another Gillette magical ad first-hand?

Brand

Everyone has a unique reputation that precedes him. Apple Inc has its silver logo with a missing chump; the United States has the ‘God Bless America’ slogan, Gillette is out to bring out the best in every man.

‘A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is—it is what the consumers tell each other it is.’

Scott Cook

Gillette’s mode of operation is comparable to none. Their thirst for quality, professionalism, and standard has kept its brand name amongst Forbes top 100 for years.

You now know why the ‘The Best a Man Can Get’ ad acquired over 4 million views within such a short time. Surprisingly, this ad didn’t bring the best out of most of the men that viewed it—the negative comments outpolled the likes by a 10 to 1.

What went wrong?

Proctor & Gamble ‘Gillette’s exec’ have had a formidable track record in resonating stories with brand identity within the past years. ‘The Talk ad’ did a great job in creating awareness about racial bias and prejudice in 2017—what do you think went wrong?

Worldview

Nobody likes it when a company out to make profit talks about morals, {not to mention talking about it in a biased way}. Gillette wanted to regain the formidable reputation it had enjoyed for over 30 years. The masses were well aware.

Why look them to their faces and tell a story that is right-out insulting?

The ad was referred to as ‘amateurishly stereotypical and mostly offers a caricature of masculinity.’ The masses didn’t believe that Gillette actually cared about how men treat women or how they behaved.

The Trend is not Always a Viable Resource

One of the motives behind Gillette’s controversial ad was a research—which at the time—suggested that millennials give more credit to brands that relied on corporate social responsibility appeals.

With such trends, brands like Samsung have kept their customer database growing for years. Though, little did Gillette know that its customer base didn’t in any way find ‘corporate social responsibility appeals’ appealing.

Now, to a simple definition of marketing

Marketing is simply trying to sell something to someone—be it an idea, product, service, doctrine, anything at all.

Marketing is an important part of every industry. Whether you are trying to build a customer base, win more clients, grow your business, move ahead of the competition, teach algebra to a class of teenagers or indoctrinate a city—success depends on your marketing strategy.

Every good Idea or bad product is subject to marketing. Without the right marketing strategy, nothing obtains a profitable position in any competitive market.

Importance of Marketing

In Seth Godin’s book ‘All marketer are liars’ he defined marketing as the act of spreading ideas’

In Seth’s Voice, ‘Marketing is about spreading ideas, and spreading ideas is the single most important output of our civilization.’

From a marketer’s façade, marketing is about the item he/she is trying to sell, but for the consumer, it’s about the story behind the item.

Going back to ‘The best a man can Get’ ad, Gillette wanted to reclaim their spot as a premium brand. Within the past decade, their shares had dropped by 20% due to increasing competition.

Appealing to its audience using social responsibility appeal was a wise choice, but the story behind the ad didn’t send out the right message. In marketing, when story and context don’t match, you would always end up at the losing end.

How to Blend Story and Context

Insight

Insight is the single most important aspect of marketing. You either build your marketing strategies on insights or resign to leftovers from the competitions table.

Like Adele Revella said ”Effective communication requires good listening.”

Insights would help you listen to your audience better. A marketing strategy void of insight on customers expectation would hardly create a blend between story {your product} and context {customers desire}.

Core Message

Your core message provides you with a piece of snappy but effectual information on creating a marketing strategy for your business.

It’s no news that if we are to go into detail about all the information an average marketer needs to acquire to gain substantial standing in the industry, this content wouldn’t be able to provide the ‘10 minutes read’ we want it to give.

To blend story and context, you must know your core message.

Value

The internet made marketing easy. Back in the 90s when traditional advertising stood tall, only fortune 500 companies had the financial capability to market their product on a global scale.

With social media, email, and commercials taking over, a lot of brands market their product/service before acquiring the skill required to meet the needs and demands of consumers.

Story and context can only be possible when you are telling the truth. Marketing might have become easy, but that has not in any way compromised consumers ability to spot lies. Most consumers can subconsciously decipher the value your product offers via a glance at your website.

Take out to train your skills and improve your product before marketing.

The Marketing World: Beginners and Professionals

Out here, it’s either you are a beginner, or a professional. The gap between both worlds is quite small; there is no room for mediocrity. So, if you know you are good enough but can’t call yourself a professional, kindly stick with the beginner introductory tag—Humble beginnings create great exploits.

While we based Gillette as a case study to explain what marketing is like and some of the takeaways that a failed marketing campaign comes with, it’s important to bear in mind that ‘The best a man can get’ super bowl ad of the 1980’s made Gillette a premium brand for over 30 years—experts and professionals still fall short in the industry.

‘’There are lots of jobs for beginners, the same way they are lots of jobs for professionals. Stories bring professionals and beginners together, pay range differentiates them.  Beginners can grow to create expert’s ideas; experts can sometimes behave like armatures.’’

Bear in Mind; Marketing is never a one-man job. You might have the expertise to tell great stories, to carry out research, to create compelling ads, but alone; you would have a hard time deciphering your consumers’ voice and creating strategic marketing campaigns base on insights.  

Finally

Till date, it’s hard to decipher what Gillette’s marketers were thinking. You have a customer base in which over 80% are men; how would you call a story that looks your customers in the face and makes a caricature of their masculinity ‘a social responsibility appeal?’

Here is another ad created by EGard Watch Company.

What is a Man? A Response to ‘The Best A Man Can Get’