P&G’s New Ad: Objectively Touching
The ad is objectively touching, highlighting the importance of a mother’s presence in the first steps, in nutrition, in education, and then in helping children to face the many difficulties, disappointments, and small and large obstacles encountered in doing sports and pursuing a competitive career.
The video underlines the importance of the mother’s presence both in difficult moments and in sharing happy ones, which leads athletes to say a grateful “for teaching us that every fall makes us stronger, thank you mom.” On the net, there is no shortage of aggressive judgments from supporters of the “modern” family, who cannot tolerate the celebration of women as mothers par excellence and warn that it is also an interested celebration, as it is signed by a multinational like P&G and all its brands aimed at women.
Even in this case, if we count the posts in favor of the communication operation, we can see that they are the vast majority, which is very significant as it is known that, especially on the web, the majority generally remains silent. Evidently, it is a good sign of awareness and maturity. There are also those who go into the merits of the “advertising” issue and calmly write: “So what? If a company with commercial interests expresses and spreads a true and healthy concept, what’s the problem?” Another says: “We complain so much about advertising that is offensive to the image of women and when there is one that recognizes the just and generous contribution of women, we have to criticize it?” It is difficult to disagree. Many consider the ad “sincerely moving,” which is due to the fact that the great mastery of the execution has made every scene true, exciting, real, without any reference to the stereotyped families that can still be seen occasionally and which for that very reason sound “false”.
Certainly, there is the intent to speak to the heart of that part of the public (women) who ultimately constitute the large platoon of “purchasing managers” and derive benefits from sympathy and good reputation… but if the advertising battle were to shift to these fronts, there would only be gains. Only one post contained a very accurate observation: “And where are the fathers?”
Yes, indeed. Evidently, with the aim of celebrating the mother, the presence of the fathers, “technically”, could have created some problems. Although it is true that, in reality, it is almost always the mothers who are present in the moments described. So let’s turn the observation to P&G: since 2014 will be the European Year of Work-Life Balance, here is a new interesting theme for a future ad on gender equality.
