# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Full Pepsi Commercial Starring Kendal Jenner

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Here’s why Kendall Jenner's Pepsi ad is so controversial

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
People Are Outraged By This Pepsi Ad Starring Kendall Jenner

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
nike's 'you can't stop us' ad is winning big on social media - cnn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nike's viral 'You Can't Stop Us' ad is winning big on social media

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nike's latest viral ad is garnering praise online for its message of inclusiveness and perseverance at a time when organized sports have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
DREAM CRAZIER | NIKE COMMERCIAL ft. SERENA WILLIAMS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nike has unveiled its first 'Just Do It' ad narrated by Colin Kaepernick. The two-minute commercial highlights superstar athletes LeBron James, Serena Williams and others, and touches on the controversy of NFL players protesting against racial inequality, police brutality and other issues by kneeling during the national anthem.

The endorsement deal between Nike and Kaepernick has triggered a flood of debate, with some calling for a boycott of the company's products

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nike releases full ad featuring Colin Kaepernick - video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nike has unveiled its first 'Just Do It' ad narrated by Colin Kaepernick. The two-minute commercial highlights superstar athletes LeBron James, Serena Williams and others, and touches on the controversy of NFL players protesting against racial inequality, police brutality and other issues by kneeling during the national anthem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ike is no stranger to controversy. The sportswear firm has run advertising featuring Lance Armstrong after a doping scandal, Maria Sharapova following a failed drugs test and Tiger Woods in the midst of a sex scandal and after a drug driving accusation.

But selecting Colin Kaepernick, an outcast American football player and civil rights activist, as the face of its new global advertising campaign is its most divisive move.

Kaepernick has been a polarising figure since 2016, when, as a player for the San Francisco 49ers, he refused to stand during the national anthem. At first he sat as a protest, then later sank to his knee. The protest was intended to draw attention, he said, to police killings of African Americans and other injustices.

Nike's share price fell by 2% on Tuesday as the response ranged from people burning trainers and cutting the Nike logo from their socks to threatening a complete boycott of the brand. On the other side the campaign was lauded by figures including the basketball player LeBron James and Serena Williams.

Kaepernick said of his protest: "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of colour. To me this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

Soon, his teammates joined him and the protest spread to other players, lasting into the 2017 season. The NFL released a statement saying players were "encouraged to" but not required to stand during the national anthem as anger grew among members of the public. The former NFL great Jerry Rice accused Kaepernick of "disrespecting the flag," though he said he understood his stance.

Kaepernick, centre, and San Francisco 49ers teammates protesting in 2016. Photograph: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

Donald Trump waded into the furore, using his stage at a political rally to launch a sensational attack on NFL players who chose to take the knee. "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He's fired. He's fired!'" The American president raged.

Team owners reacted to widespread condemnation by banding together and ruling that all players must stand during the national anthem. In 2017 when Kaepernick became a free agent, a player without a club, no team offered him a contract, and that October he filed a grievance against the NFL accusing team owners of colluding to keep him from being signed.

The new Nike advert nods to the 30-year-old's apparent exile from the league. It features a black and white close-up of Kaepernick's face overlaid with the caption: "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything."

Announcing the campaign, Gino Fisanotti, Nike's vice-president of brand, said: "We believe Colin is one of the most inspirational athletes of this generation, who has leveraged the power of sport to help move the world forward. We wanted to energise its meaning and introduce 'Just Do It' to a new generation of athletes."

Kaepernick, who grew up in California, has been compared to the boxer Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens, the African American star of the 1936 "Nazi Olympics", in using his sporting prowess to draw attention to wider social issues.

He had a previous deal with Nike, the main clothing sponsors of the NFL, but had not appeared in their campaigns since 2011. A new agreement was negotiated and Kaepernick was made one of the faces of the brand's 30th anniversary of the "Just Do It" slogan. The move re-ignited a debate that has rumbled in the background for many months and was played out on talk shows across America on Monday.

John Brennan, a CIA director from 2013-2017, tweeted his support, saying the athlete was a successful social justice campaigner. "Colin Kaepernick drew our collective attention to the problem of continued racial injustice in America," Brennan wrote. "He did so not to disrespect our flag but to give meaning to the words of the preamble of our constitution - 'in order to form a more perfect union'. Well done, Colin."

But opponents took to social media, promising to destroy Nike products. On Twitter they hit out at the deal using the hashtag #JustBurnIt, which trended alongside #BoycottNike.

The country singer John Rich tweeted a photo of his sound engineer holding a pair of Nike socks with the brand's swoosh logo cut out. "Former marine. Get ready Nike, multiply that by millions," he wrote.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nike's controversial Colin Kaepernick ad campaign its most divisive yet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ike is no stranger to controversy. The sportswear firm has run advertising featuring Lance Armstrong after a doping scandal, Maria Sharapova following a failed drugs test and Tiger Woods in the midst of a sex scandal and after a drug driving accusation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gillette tackles toxic masculinity in new ad

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The shaving brand Gillette has launched a new ad campaign in response to the Me Too movement. The video urges men to hold each other to a higher standard and to step up when they see fellow men acting inappropriately towards women. The video has received intense criticism on social media with many men calling for a boycott of the brand

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gillette's 'We believe: the best men can be' razors commercial takes on toxic masculinity - video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The shaving brand Gillette has launched a new ad campaign in response to the Me Too movement. The video urges men to hold each other to a higher standard and to step up when they see fellow men acting inappropriately towards women.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Gillette made a risky bet with a new ad referencing the #MeToo movement and questions around toxic masculinity.

If the intention was to stir the debate, it succeeded. The ad drew immediate, impassioned reactions on social media: calls for boycott of parent company Procter & Gamble Co. from men who said they were offended by "political correctness" and praise from people who called it brave to challenge gender norms.

Piers Morgan, the TV presenter, blasted the ad, writing, "This absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity."

READ MORE:
* Raising boys in the wake of #MeToo
* Men are being bullied and humiliated in the name of 'boys being boys'
* Men talk to men about being men

The ad was called "hideously woke." Some found it "smarmy" and "condescending." By early Tuesday, the video had about 223,000 downvotes on YouTube, compared with about 25,000 favourable reactions. On Twitter, the video had drawn about 70,000 likes and 19,000 comments.

Hey @Gillette, I love your new ad. Sorry to hear that some men are too sensitive for the suggestion that dudes should behave with basic human decency. Good thing women shave too, and we've got a lot more body hair that we're expected to get rid of 😂
https://t.co/mHaKkjFrJl
- rebeccaloebe (@rebeccaloebe) 15 janvier 2019

In the ad, razor maker Gillette draws on its old slogan "The Best a Man Can Get" to take a fresh look at what it means to be a man in today's world. The clip, produced with advertising giant WPP's Grey unit, was directed by Australian filmmaker Kim Gehrig.

Before the new ad, "The Best a Man Can Get" meant an acquisitive, assertive and always clean-shaven individual.

This was the vision of masculinity depicted in an ad campaign that debuted in January 1989 during Super Bowl XXIII. The early days of the George H.W. Bush administration and the end stage of the Cold War, it was the year of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." Promoting Gillette's top-of-the-line Atra razor, the 60-second spot portrayed variations on a single theme: a white man scoring, whether at the office, on an athletic field or with a woman. The one specific location it invoked was Wall Street, the arena of the ultimate alpha male.

Gillette's new ad, "We Believe," challenges the image of masculinity it once promoted. The consumer goods company, whose net sales totalled $66.8 billion last year, has ignited a debate about gender and cultural branding, as well as about the power exercised by multinational corporations in shaping evolving ideas about family and relationships in the #MeToo era.

"Bullying. The #MeToo movement. Toxic masculinity." The headlines resound as men - black and white, young and old - peer at themselves in the mirror. "Is this the best a man can get?" asks the narrator of the ad, released Sunday on YouTube and shared Monday on Twitter. The scenes that unfold suggest that the answer is no, and point to a new mantra: "The Best Men Can Be."

The new Gillette men are a community, concerned more about who they are than about what they can acquire.

There is a whole bunch of conversation to digest around that Gillette ad, but it should go without saying that brands absolutely have a place in these conversations. Advertising helped cement versions of masculinity that became the problem, and they should spend money fixing it.
- Elamin Abdelmahmoud (@elamin88) 15 janvier 2019

The nearly two-minute spot, created by the New York-based advertising agency Grey and directed by Kim Gehrig of Britain-based production agency Somesuch, represents the latest corporate foray into the culture wars. Last year, Nike stock soared after it unveiled a September advertising campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, the NFL star whose protest of police violence drew the ire of conservatives who decried his decision to kneel during the national anthem.

Just as the decision by the footwear and apparel company led Kaepernick's critics to burn their Nike gear, the approach by Procter & Gamble incensed many viewers, but none more so than men's rights activists who vowed to "#BoycottGillette." Christina Sommers, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who coined the term "victim feminism," blamed a familiar boogeyman: the campus left.

Meanwhile, even some who praised the company's intentions warned that the ad unwittingly reinforced the idea that bad behaviour is normal because all men take part in it.

The fierce reactions may bode well for the success of the message, said Robert Kozinets, a scholar of marketing and consumer culture at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

"Advertisers, when they're lucky and smart, are able to tap into something that's part of the popular consciousness," Kozinets said in an interview with The Washington Post. Procter & Gamble is hitching its wagon to the #MeToo movement, he said, and rebranding to fit a "moral narrative with a lot of energy behind it."

I've used @Gillette razors my entire adult life but this absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity.
Let boys be damn boys.
Let men be damn men. https://t.co/Hm66OD5lA4
- Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) 14 janvier 2019

The video was accompanied by a pledge to donate $1 million per year for the next three years to a nonprofit working in the United States to help men "achieve their personal 'best,' " according to a news release from Gillette. Its original slogan, the company said, was aspirational. "But turn on the news today and it's easy to believe that men are not at their best," the release noted. The first recipient of the funds will be the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, according to Adweek.

While picking sides on a divisive issue could be seen as a threat to the company's bottom line, Kozinets said, most advertising is a quest not to be forgotten, which means even negative feedback can be productive.

And while some might object to a profit-minded company acting as an arbiter of moral conduct, there are few other forums to debate these issues, he said. When it comes to inspiring the public to consider hot-button issues, Kozinets observed, "politicians are clearly not rising to the challenge. But corporations are."

One example is Heineken's 2017 Worlds Apart campaign, which aimed to bring people with radically different worldviews together over a cold one. But advertising has missed the mark by trying to swim in the direction of political currents as well. Also in 2017, Pepsi pulled an ad with Kendall Jenner that was blasted for co-opting protest movements.

The message of the Gillette ad is hardly subtle in identifying a crisis of masculinity. Young boys bully, chasing each other or taunting "Freak" in cyberspace. Adult men harass and demean. They leer at women at parties and on street corners. "What I actually think she's trying to say," a corporate executive cuts in, putting his hand on the shoulder of the lone woman at a boardroom table as he silences her.

Interspersed with these scenes are images from popular culture - reality TV, music videos, cartoons - that appear to normalise bad behaviour, justified by the mantra "Boys will be boys."

"But something finally changed," the narrator intones, as #MeToo revelations flash on the screen. "And there will be no going back. Because we - we believe in the best in men."

The remaining scenes feature men policing each other's behaviour or uplifting women. "I am strong," a father tells his young daughter. The message imparted to two brawling boys is, "That's not how we treat each other, okay?" These lessons matter, the ad concludes, "because the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow."

Representations of masculinity have long been fertile ground for advertising, stretching at least as far back as the Marlboro Man, a figure of a rugged cowboy who first appeared in 1954 to popularise filtered cigarettes, which had been perceived as feminine.

More recently, the "Old Spice Guy," which advertised another Procter & Gamble product, reflected new expectations that men be "both sex symbols and good domestic partners," Kozinets said. He noted that the campaign, which launched in 2010, took a more lighthearted approach to masculine aspirations, in line with the image projected by President Barack Obama.

Men have hardly been the sole targets of advertising that seeks to bend cultural expectations.

The 2004 Dove Campaign for Real Beauty aimed to convince women that there were many ways to be beautiful. But mainly, it helped sell soap. In the year after the campaign launched, the company's total sales rose about 6 percent to $500 million.

* comments on this article have been closed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gillette ad sparks outrage with its take on toxic masculinity in #MeToo-era rebrand

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Gillette made a risky bet with a new ad referencing the #MeToo movement and questions around toxic masculinity. If the intention was to stir the debate, it succeeded. The ad drew immediate, impassioned reactions on social media: calls for boycott of parent company Procter & Gamble Co.