Posted on 08/02/2019 8:38:37 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
"Your stupid boycotts will never make a dent in a company like P&G," one liberal scoffed back in January. Turns out, they didn't just make a dent. After a string of male-bashing, transgender shaving ads, the parent company of Gillette got nicked so badly, market experts wonder if the brand will survive. Gillette's CEO insists the radical activism was "worth the price." Let's hope so -- because so far, that price is a whopping $8 billion dollars.
To most customers, a razor company dabbling in gender politics never made sense in the first place. Gillette used to be "the best a man can get." Now the company can't even acknowledge what a man actually is! Things for the brand started to unravel earlier this year when P&G gave the green light to a controversial commercial about the culture's "toxic masculinity." The idea, CEO Gary Coombe said at the time, was to reach millennials. Weeks into the flop, even he admitted it backfired.
But instead of ditching its politically-charged messages, Gillette dug in deeper. On Father's Day, the company finally went too far, launching an ad about a dad teaching his "son" -- who happens to be a biological girl -- how to shave. That did it. Conservative groups like One Million Moms activated, warning customers that unless they wanted their money to support an ideology Pediatricians call "child abuse," they'd better find another razor.
Based on this quarter's report, an astonishing number of Americans did. "P&G reported a net loss of about $5.24 billion, or $2.12 per share, for the quarter ended June 30, due to an $8 billion non-cash writedown of Gillette. For the same period last year," Reuters explains, "P&G's net income was $1.89 billion, or 72 cents per share." At least for now, the company's executives are refusing to blame their liberal politics. Instead, CFO Jon Moeller found another culprit: Beards. That's right. P&G is actually writing off its monumental fail on the rise of facial hair. "Lower shaving frequency has reduced the size of the developed blades and razors market," he tried to justify on a call with analysts.
PING!
But it’s because real men wear beards (and also because electric shaving is very good and very easy today).
Don’t want a beard. Don’t want a Gillette, either.
There shoo be a lot of men who suddenly decided to grow beards, eh?
I quit using Gillette after the ads which sucks because they make a good product.
Seems a lot of others made the same decision
Actually it probably is because of electric shaving... which can not just deliver smooth skin because the head(s) depress the skin and expose more of the hair, but can also deliver a controlled stubble look too. The Gillette style blade is becoming obsolescent.
Entire article here.
How do go broke selling a well-established product like razors?
Gillette: “Here, hold mah beer.”
I prefer the use of a blade to finish shaving. I find electric shaving still leaves some stubble.
But it won’t be a Gillette blade.
The CEO lost money for people that hired him to earn. What makes this guy tick? Can him; whoever can.
Long live choice in the shaving biz.
Gillette had been claiming that blade sales themselves have been declining. And it might even be true. Electric is better for a lot of folks, obviously not everybody.
But why should Gillette have jumped the shark? Talk about offending your target market gratuitously.
Baseball players are leading the pack, players look like Americans during the last of the 19th century.
King Gillette was a Communist.
SJWs always lie;
SJWs always project;
SJWs always double down.
It starts with HR. SJWs target Human Resources and load it up with their own kind, then they load up the company from the inside.
Once the company starts showing the signs, it’s already in the process of dying. Actual talent has been run off and replaced with the various virtue quotas and ideological friendlies. The leadership has been replaced with the compliant and cooperative.
It’s a rot and it kills the corporate organism.
I wonder if Gillette's shareholders agree with this.
Even though it’s a home town company, I’ll avoid Gillette and stick with Harry’s for now. The guys at Harry’s may be left of Bernie Sanders for all I know, but all their ads do is pitch razor blades and other shaving tools. Sell the product and don’t tell me what you consider right or wrong outside your niche.
A lesson my father taught me about retail: Never take a public political stance because there’s a good chance that half your customers or prospective customers disagree with you.
I agree with you on HR. That’s how they get a reign of fear going within a corporation.
Bingo !
But again... if Gillette got infested this way, and others have gotten infested this way, is there anything that can be done other than the boycott? Until the CEO gets the gumption to fire HR, the boycotts might impoverish the company but otherwise won’t work. There’s a politically correct gun to his head.
The real answer is a bold gospel.
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