Is this the best a man can get?

What do people really think about the Gillette advert campaign?

Which brand would you expect to kick off 2019 with a short film about respecting women?

Entitled “The best men can be”, Gillette’s new campaign called for collective improvement and a stand against bullying, misogyny and the harassment of women — and it temporarily broke the internet.

Across social media, some men promised to never buy Gillette again, while others criticised that reaction as exactly the toxic attitude Gillette is seeking to highlight.

To avoid the echo chamber of social media and find out how people really feel, we took the pulse of our UK and US users — or bees. Were the angry responses online really representative of what people think?

In a lather?

We found that the loud social media storm doesn’t reflect the overall response of the population at large. Both men and women across all age groups reacted positively to the advert.

Women were overall more positive than men (58% vs 49%): but the proportion of negative responses was overall very small — less than 1 in 10 responded badly (6% of women, and 9% of men).

Moreover, more than 1 in 5 male respondents felt the advert was “great” — far outweighing those who thought it was uncomfortable, preachy or offensive. Female audiences were similarly positive.

“I think it is a strong positive message and brings society’s values in line with the modern day,” said a 24-year-old female respondent.

“It’s a great advert with a very strong, powerful message about equality, and men being held accountable for their actions,” said a male respondent, 31.

Cross-cuts

There were shifts in attitudes across generational lines, as our older bees reacted less favourably to the advert.

However, these weren’t as great as might be expected. On balance, the campaign still resonated: 49% of over-45s responded positively to the campaign, against a negative 6%.

However, the older the bee, the clearer the split in attitude by gender. While only 3% of over-45s women responded negatively, 14% of over-45s men were opposed, and just 1 in 3 older men had a positive reaction.

Still, on balance the campaign was received more positively than not — and not just with Gen Z, but across all age groups and categories.

“I would like to see more men act the way the commercial asks,” said a 36-year-old male respondent. “I try to portray this to others, especially my son.”

Razor edge

That’s not to say the campaign will have as great an impact as Gillette might like.

Despite the generally positive tone of responses overall, around 1 in 3 said the ad made no impact on them at all.

“To be honest, while it’s a good moral message to get across it’s not something I really associate with Gillette,” said one male respondent, aged 46. “I want to see the razors and its products rather than them taking a moral stance on a political issue.”

Indeed, when asked why they choose the brand they do, the top reasons — value for money, quality, and effectiveness — all relate to the product itself, and not company values or image.

Maybe — just maybe — this ad will change that. We found that Gillette buyers felt more positively about the ad (62%) than buyers of other razors (56%), perhaps showing that they may feel good about being associated with the brand’s principles going forward.

Furthermore, 8% of our bees said they would be more likely to buy Gillette now, against only 2% overall who said they would be less likely.

So — despite the outpouring of rage on Twitter — will Gillette carve out even more market share as a result?

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A quick word on our methodology: The figures in the article are taken from Streetbees community members in the UK and US, carried out in Jan 2019. All of the data was collected by mobile and web surveys, and is accurate to within 5 percentage points 19 times out of 20.