CEO Who Stood Up to Gilette's 'Toxic Masculinity' Is Back with New Video 'A Letter to My Son'
A designer watch company is continuing to promote and encourage the positive aspects of masculinity with a new short film called, “A letter to my son.”
In January 2019, Procter & Gamble’s razor brand Gillette released an ad that depicted men sexually harassing women, bullying others and getting into fist fights.
While Gillette did challenge men to rise up against “toxic masculinity” in the wake of the #MeToo movement, a majority of the ad depicted men in a negative light.
The CEO of Egard Watch Company, Ilan Srulovicz, wrote in an Op-Ed on The Western Journal, “I am not against Gillette trying to start a conversation about assault, but I do have an issue with how they went about it.”
“Masculinity can be a beautiful thing, just like femininity. We need to start celebrating each other, not tearing each other down.”
That is why he decided to release a video response to Gillette’s ad that did exactly that.
Egard Watch Company’s ad was received extremely well and has since been viewed over 4.3 million times. The company even saw a spike in sales, although that was never the intention.
“My belief is that if you want to ‘make men better,’ as Gillette claims it wants to do, then the best way to do that is to show the best of us, not the worst,” Srulovicz wrote in his Op-Ed.
“When I see a man risking his life running into a burning building, it makes me want to be better. When I see a father who will stand by his kids no matter what, it makes me want to be better.”
After the “What is a man?” video went viral, Srulovicz wanted to continue highlighting positive, masculine role models. He launched a campaign called “We See The Good” where people are encouraged to submit stories of men who have inspired them.
“There’s no one really going out right now and saying, ‘Hey let’s try and share positive stories for men in our lives.’ So we just wanted to try to find a way to do that,” Srulovicz told Liftable, a section of The Western Journal.
His goal with the campaign is to build a database of stories that highlight positive male role models in order to combat the thought that all masculinity is toxic.
“If we could just flood the internet with positive stories, I think it will just organically counter what’s going on.”
Three weeks before Father’s Day, the company released a new short film called “A letter to my son.”
The emotional video beautifully captures how impactful a positive relationship can be to both a father and a son throughout their entire lives.
“It didn’t feel like there’s many people celebrating this father-son bond that exists more often than people like to give it credit for and if we want it to exist even more, then I think we have to show how wonderful it is,” Srulovicz said.
Srulovicz’s passion to highlight and encourage men was inspired by his own father, whom Egard Watch Company was created for as a tribute.
“His message has always been, ‘Why be negative?’ He’s a really, really intelligent guy and his whole approach to everything is to just be positive and he’s had a really hard life,” Srulovicz said of his father.
With his newest video, Srulovicz hopes to continue to combat negative advertising so that men can be encouraged to build healthy relationships if they don’t already.
“That’s really the goal,” he told Liftable. “Essentially to fight negative advertising with positive advertising. To show how beautiful these bonds can be, and that there’s nothing wrong to highlight things in a positive way.”
If you would like to be a part of what Egard Watch Company is doing and submit your own positive story of a male role model in your life, visit Egard Watch Company’s website.
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