Gillette and its politically correct enablers have been trying to spin that godawful ad the company ran, hectoring its own customers about 'toxic masculinity,' as a success, but buried in the details, there's one little problem:

Likeliness to buy has dropped in the wake of the fiasco. That means 'buying' which is the whole purpose of advertising. According to a post-ad survey by Morning Consult, a left-leaning consulting group that says it's 'trusted' by Politico and the New York Times:

In the two weeks before the campaign launch, 69 percent of Americans said they would consider purchasing products from Gillette. In the two days following the ad, that moved to 65 percent. 

 Morning Consult dismisses this number as insignificant in the context of the positive polling responses it says customers gave, but four points seems like a lot in just two days in the wake of such a controversy. When you hear about a tsunami or a wildfire leaving four dead in the first hour of its occurence, you know that's a figure that's going to go up. What it sounds like from this side is people lying to pollsters, saying they are all in for social justice to seem like good people - and then voting with their feet.

The likeliness to buy drop is also visible in other marketing surveys - on YouGov, the ad has slammed likeliness-to-buy in overseas markets even harder, dropping five points in the U.K. - Marketing Week has a report just out about it.

Here's the other thing: Some experienced voices in marketing are stating there are very strong reasons for this being a miss. Marketing professor Mark Ritson has spoken out in the press and take a look at what Ritson noted on his LinkedIn page:

There has a been a lot of discussion about the Gillette ad in the last few days. My take on it was that it made sense to revitalise "the best a man can get" but that the execution was flawed. But new data from Glocalities shows that even the strategy is suspect. According to their data drawn from 5000 Gillette consumers across 14 countries these men are more likely to be part of the Achievers or Conservatives segments not the Challengers or Socializer segments more open to a critique of "toxic masculinity". And when you look at what societal issues stir Gillette consumers versus average consumers, gender equality lands dead last. Existing Gillette consumers are far less inspired by the message of the ad. Hence the negative responses on social media from Gillette users/former users and the generally positive comments from others. Again, for the hard of reading, this does not mean I endorse this lack of interest in gender equality. But it does mean that a significant proportion of Gillette's consumers think this way and P&G has (probably deliberately) opted to position on purpose rather than consumer perceptions. My thanks to Martin Schiere at Glocalities hashtag#marketingmanagement hashtag#brand hashtag#advertising

Here is his LinkedIn post and chart - and if you go there, be sure to read the comments from marketing pros, such as this:

This guy, in Ritson's comments section, is really sharp:

Here's a demographic survey of Gillette's customers (not the one Ritson was referring to) suggesting that Gillette's customers do have high incomes.

What are we looking at here? A picture suggesting that the early returns say Gillette's ad is not working.

We could have told them that before they ran that ad.