Quite a bold move for Gillette - this is a departure from marketing campaigns that revolve around sportsmen and the performance aspect of shaving. It is also a smart move for a brand to make – after all, like some famous marketer said, there is only so much toothpaste you can sell to a consumer. You have to make them fall in love with your brand. Efforts like Gillette’s, which go beyond the enclosure of a ‘hard-sell’, probably take the brand one step closer to ‘brand love’. 

This isn’t the first (and surely won’t be the last) attempt that a brand has made to associate itself with social causes or events of societal magnitude. Ecological cleaning products manufacturer Ecover had a campaign run earlier this year on ‘feel good cleaning’. The commercial was supported by a call to action, moving people to Facebook where they could find out how 'feel good' they are and get involved in Ecover's CRM programme. 

In 2011, Dulux too, launched an initiative to better society. Core to its strategy were a series of public demonstrations of the Let's Colour philosophy, called 'The Let's Colour Project'.  This included a series of community regeneration projects designed to get consumers to reappraise their attitudes to colour, while at the same time, regenerating areas of the community.

Perhaps such initiatives help brands gain traction, but it is also so much more – it is about a brand feeling good about its existence, and taking consumers along with it on this upswing.