The point of advertising is to speak to as many possible customers as possible. Targeting manly men or snowflakes cuts down your market considerably. Try targeting any animal with hair - men, women, monkeys, gorillas, pets, mammals.
That need not always be the case. Target marketing seeks better segment penetration. Whether that's a good strategy in the abstract for a shaving product company is open for discussion, but who would have thought that there would be an outcry against messaging decency?
I have zero sympathy for Gillette. It's not that I disapprove of their ad campaign, which I have not seen since I have no TV and do not care to have one. It is because of their predatory business model. I could tell a story of a man named King Camp Gillette, who was intrigued by the newfangled "safety razors" made by the Kampfe Brothers and other makers, but saw room for more profit and bigger market share by making a safety razor with a disposable blade, eliminating the need for honing or stropping. And the double-edged blade format on the face of it, doubled the number of shaves per blade. The concept was a newish one, sell the razor and then you sell the blades until the owner of the razor dies. His disposable blade system got a big boost in WWI as American troops in Europe shaved with a greater level of speed, comfort, and convenience than their allies. After the end of the war, sales took off. Gillette fought off patent infringements until there simply was no way to protect the concept anymore due to the passage of time and the state of the art. The weakness of the system, apart from competition that could no longer be bullied, was the lifespan of the blades. The old thick blades could be returned to the factory for honing, for a modest fee. The thin blades gave you 4 or 5 decent shaves, then they were done. No reuse. Stainless was tried. Blades lasted longer but were more expensive. Exotic coatings. Better heat treatment and beveling techniques. Soon we had blades like "The Spoiler", while competitors came out with blades like the iconic Personna 74, and even though many men as a matter of habit changed their blade weekly, these "super blades" could be used for three weeks or even more. They were taken off the market. Competititon nearly spelled Gillette's downfall. A new paradigm was needed. Cartridge razors. Practically impossible to cut yourself. Convenience. And it was the new, modern way to shave. Slick marketing sold the razors that paid for the marketing that sold more razors. When those patents ran out, hey, TWO blades! The Trac II was born and yeah, I know we said LAST time that this would be the ultimate, new, modern, effective and efficient shaving system, but this time we REALLY mean it. Until competition started eating up their profits, then the Mach III was born. Etc etc etc. With each new product release, the previous system was deprecated as obsolete. Wear indicator strips, to tell you when to change your cartridge. Lubricating strips, because the so called shave cream in the aerosol can, sucks. More refinements that you simply cannot do without. It says so, right there on TV. If Gillette actually cared about men giving themselves a great shave, they would sell reasonably priced straight razors and proper shave soap and decent badger brushes and inexpensive strops, and post "How to Shave, the Manly Way" videos. A straight razor can easily last 40 or 50 years. More than half of mine are over 100 years old. Lather made with a brush on proper shave soap or real shave cream provide much better cushion and glide than the canned goo that gets pushed at us. When you actually know how to hone, strop, and use a straight razor, you get great shaves and never have to buy a blade. But it is all about profit at all costs, and responsibility to shareholders instead of customers. Customers are merely the fountain of profit, and get no special consideration. Product sucks? No problem. Simply have Joe Namath or Farrah Fawcett tell us that it is GREAT. People can be so stupid. I HOPE Gillette (owned now by that men's grooming mega-corp P&G, I believe) goes under. AFAIC it is a disposable company.