P&G’s grooming business has seen its share of struggles recently. North America Group President Carolyn Tastad can admit that.
That’s part of what prompted the massive company to rethink how it presented its brand Gillette to the world.
“For Generation Z and millennials under 30, this social responsibility part is very, very important to them,” Tastad said at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women International Summit in Toronto Tuesday.
So when backlash followed its first socially focused ad regarding toxic masculinity, P&G elected not to pull the commercial. And it largely paid off, according to Tastad.
She noted that the ad reached 65% “positive sentiment,” and that number was even higher for Gen Z and millennials under 30 at 80%.
But it’s not enough to put out one ad focusing on a social issue. The same demographics that favor socially conscious companies also value authenticity.
“It has to be fully integrated and baked into the business model. It can’t be an ad that plays once and everything else stands for something else. It has to be totally holistic. It has to be how the brand continued to use its voice. It can’t be one and done,” Tastad added.
So P&G followed up with an ad that featured a father and his son, who has been transitioning into a man and is preparing to shave for the first time. P&G has a similarly-focused commercial in the works as well.
Gillette’s classic tagline “the best a man can get” has morphed into “the best a man can be.” Instead of solely focusing on the superior qualities of its razors, Gillette wanted to highlight its customers being their best person.
But Tastad isn’t interested in dropping quality, either.
“We still have to deliver all the other parts of superiority.”
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—Tune in to Fortune’s Most Powerful Women international summit through Sept. 17
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