How Men’s Wearhouse “Good on You” Campaign is Teaching Men About the Best Parts of Themselves

By Trés Jones, Account Executive

This past spring semester, I participated in an internship in New York City with EP+Co, an advertising agency based out of Greenville, South Carolina. In their New York office, I interned with the strategy department and was able to see the strategy behind each of the agency’s clients, one of those being Men’s Wearhouse. At the time of my arrival, Gillette released an advertisement that they believed would speak to men in the era of “Me Too." What the shaving company ended up doing was offending many men with their advertisement named “We Believe."

In the advertisement, Gillette didn’t have a scene with one man shaving, making the advertisement feel more like a PSA about the current social climate about how men should act. This PSA-like advertisement first depicted men as being immature, inappropriate, and rude while projecting the phrase “boys will be boys.” The ad went on to flash the words “is this the best a man can get?" and flashed to more scenes of men giving each other tips on how to properly act. Many men felt that this advertisement “man bashed” them and they were unhappy.

This sparked a lot of controversy; some people liked the advertisement while others did not. At EP+Co they felt that after the release of the Gillette ad, they had an opportunity with Men’s Wearhouse to speak to all men about the “good men that they already are”. Men’s Wearhouse had just separated from their founder George Zimmer the long-time face of their company, and the company wanted to make a statement that would separate them from Zimmer. The strategy team was confident that Men’s Wearhouse was the brand for the job and they created the ad campaign “Good on You”.

“Good on You” is supposed to be an indirect response to the advertisement Gillette created. The strategy team went on to create the campaign's first ad that talked about the good things men do and how they were unlike “the other guys”. The focus of the campaign was to speak to men who felt attacked by society and the Gillette ad. It is still up to debate on whether each ad was conducive to the issue, but both were bold attempts to gain the attention of viewers to start a conversation around men’s behavior.