Carry on shaving... until the razor cuts

BY a happy coincidence, the new ad for Gillette, which “takes on toxic masculinity”, arrives just as I have finished watching Mad Men again in its entirety on Netflix.

And in the course of all that impossibly beautiful work, there is the celebrated episode in which Don Draper takes out an ad in the New York Times, announcing that his agency will not be doing business any more with the cigarette industry. He admits they have recently lost their biggest client, Lucky Strike — but are using this as an opportunity to get out of that toxic business anyway.

Thus he “changes the conversation”, and saves his company.

When you consider the Nike ads, which use the progressive message of Colin Kaepernick, and now the Gillette campaign, it seems the finest minds of advertising are still very much in love with Don Draper and his playbook.

Except I don’t think Gillette have hit the spot the way that Nike did. To change the slogan from “The Best A Man Can Get” to “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be” is a tad inelegant, but it falls apart completely at the end — after an uplifting sequence of images of men not behaving badly, they conclude with the lines: “It’s only by challenging ourselves to do more, that we can get closer to our best.”

Anyone who put that in front of Don Draper would have received a chilling glance as he swept out the door, and the verdict: “Next time you want to write a short story, send it to The New Yorker.”

“We Believe…” they’ve declared at the start, but looking at that line, Don would know they don’t believe it enough.