Gillette’s ‘The Best Men Can Be’: When Purpose Marketing Becomes a Liability

I watched Gillette’s “The Best Men Can Be” ad three times before I wrote a single word about it. Once as a consumer. Once as a marketer. Once as a human being trying to understand what a 118-year-old shaving brand was actually trying to say.

The verdict after all three viewings: the creative instinct was right, the execution was flawed, and the strategic framing was borderline reckless. And the fallout was, frankly, predictable.

Let me explain.

What Gillette Was Trying to Do

Gillette’s market share had been in free fall for years. The brand that once commanded over 70% of the men’s razor market was watching Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, and a dozen direct-to-consumer competitors systematically dismantle their premium pricing model. Their core customer — men — was aging out of their ideal demographic. Younger men didn’t have the same brand loyalty. They needed to reset.

The strategic instinct was to reposition around values. To connect the brand to the cultural conversation happening around toxic masculinity in the post-#MeToo moment. To say, in effect: Gillette doesn’t just help men shave, Gillette believes in a better kind of masculinity. That’s a defensible strategy. Patagonia has built an entire brand around values-alignment. Dove’s Real Beauty campaign changed how the industry thought about brand purpose. It can work.

The problem wasn’t the strategy. The problem was the execution.

What Went Wrong

Purpose marketing only works when the brand has earned the right to speak on the topic. Dove could talk about body image because it had spent years selling beauty products to real women, not supermodels. Patagonia can talk about environmental responsibility because they’ve demonstrated it through supply chain decisions, political advocacy, and financial sacrifice.

What had Gillette done to earn the right to lecture men about masculinity? Nothing. They sold razors. Their advertising for the previous three decades was about as conventionally masculine as it gets. When you transition from “Look sharp, feel sharp” to “Stop bullying each other,” the authenticity gap is enormous — and audiences feel that gap immediately.

The second problem: the ad positioned Gillette’s own customers — men — as the problem. Purpose marketing works when you celebrate your audience’s values. It fails when you implicitly criticize them. Biting the hand that funds you requires extraordinary execution and genuine credibility. Gillette had neither.

The result was predictable: the brand took a $8 billion write-down on its shaving business in July 2019, and while the ad wasn’t the sole cause, it certainly didn’t help arrest the slide. The boycott hashtags trended. The YouTube dislike ratio was brutal. And most importantly, the conversation completely overshadowed whatever message Gillette was actually trying to send.

What They Got Right

Here’s the thing most people miss: in terms of pure awareness metrics, the campaign was a success. Hundreds of millions of views. Coverage in every major publication. The brand’s name was in the global conversation for weeks. If your goal was PR impressions, you’d call it a win.

The other thing they got right: they committed. They didn’t pull the ad the moment the backlash hit. They stood behind it. In a world where brands capitulate at the first sign of controversy, there’s something to be said for conviction.

The Real Lesson

Purpose marketing isn’t a strategy you deploy when your business is in trouble. It’s a long-term brand investment that requires authenticity, consistency, and — most importantly — the credibility that comes from actually living the values you claim to hold. You can’t buy credibility with a two-minute video. You earn it through years of decisions that cost you something.

The brands that have done purpose marketing right didn’t start with a campaign. They started with a conviction. Then they built a campaign around proof points that already existed. Gillette tried to shortcut that process. The market noticed.

You can’t buy purpose with a Super Bowl ad. You earn it through a decade of decisions that cost you something.

Steve Wolf

Sources: Boston University — Where Gillette’s New Ad Went Wrong · 8 Most Controversial Marketing Campaigns

Steve Wolf is a C-suite marketing executive and brand strategist with 20 years of experience. He serves as CMO of Pinnacle Global Network and CEO of Aquaphant.