Brawny Paper Towel Propaganda

DK Episode 2 - May 17, 2019 - Duration: 10:32

Drawk Kwast explains to Brawny how their marketing department is losing customers for them.

Transcript

0:00:22.1 Drawk Kwast: We need to have a talk about Brawny paper towels. I've been buying Brawny forever. Why? Because it's the only paper towel I can ever find that doesn't have bunnies, flowers, rainbows and pretty little girls all over it. I just want a white paper towel. This time when I buy my Brawny package, I see that the lumberjack, alpha male symbol that I associate with, which is why I was buying their product, has been replaced by girls in flannel. And hashtag "strength has no gender." This is the last package of Brawny paper towels I ever buy. Let's call their customer support number, shall we?

0:01:29.0 Brawny IVR: Thank you for calling Georgia Pacific. For English, stay on the line or press one. Para Espanol, marque dos. For individuals calling to request discount coupons, press two. Otherwise, please stay on the line to speak to the next available agent. Your call may be monitored for quality and training purposes.

0:02:09.8 Brawny Representative: Thank you for calling Georgia Pacific. This is Stephanie. How can I help you?

0:02:14.1 DK: Hi, Stephanie. This is Drawk Kwast calling, and I am not sure how new it is, but it's the first that I have seen this. I'm calling about a Brawny package that I bought last night. It is a six-roll. And the reason why I'm calling and what is weird about the packaging, hopefully you're familiar with this, is the good old brawny lumberjack has been replaced by women wearing flannel. And it now says across it, hashtag "strength has no gender, proud supporter of Girls Inc." Are you familiar with this package?

0:02:53.0 BR: Yes, I am.

0:02:56.1 DK: What was it that you were going for with that? What was the campaign? What was the question that that was solving? What was the reason for changing it?

0:03:08.3 BR: Well, we only do that every year, once a year in March for Women's Month. To celebrate women, we change the packaging. So I'm not sure why your store still has that packaging. Like I said, it was only out during the month of March.

0:03:23.9 DK: Okay. Do you guys have a month that you celebrate Men's Month?

0:03:30.8 BR: I mean, the Brawny man is on the package the rest of the year.

0:03:34.6 DK: Okay, let me pose the question a little bit differently. At any point, have you put a hashtag on the outside of your package that is pro male? Give me an example of the last hashtag that you have that was a pro man hashtag that you put on your packages?

0:03:53.0 BR: We don't know... I can't think of any, sir.

0:03:56.7 DK: It's because you haven't ever. Let me ask another question. When have you put something on your package such as a "Proud supporter of Boy Scouts" or, what would be another good one? How about raising money for young boys that grew up without fathers, single mom households? Those kids really struggle. Have you guys ever done anything like that?

0:04:25.0 BR: No, we never have.

0:04:27.8 DK: So let me get to the point here. And I'm trying to stay calm, so you actually... This registers instead of it's just an angry customer calling. Your brand got bought by many, many, many men, because it was the default brand for men. Let me explain. When I go into a CVS pharmacy, an Albertsons grocery store or whatever, and I go to the paper towel aisle, everything I see is women and flowers. In fact, if you actually try, you can try this next time you're in the grocery. Try to find paper towels that don't have flowers on them. And you realize that you're one of the only brands that are like that. The problem is, you guys started marketing to men, to masculine men. The lumberjack. So me as a masculine man, I walk in, I see the lumberjack. I associate with the brand. I grab it and I go. And once I do that once, like I did that in my 20s a long time ago, you guys basically have a customer for life until you insult us.

0:05:44.0 DK: And what you guys have done is very similar to this Gillette ad where they're insulting their client base. They sell razor blades to masculine men that have facial hair, and then they insult them. And this is kind of what you're doing. And it's not because you wanna press women's stuff. This is what throws it over the edge. What throws it over the edge is your hashtag. Your hashtag "strength has no gender" is demonstratively false. And let me explain this to you. And then I'm done, and I thank you for listening. If you compare the Brawny man that I'm used to seeing on my package, to any one of these girls that you've put on the package, it is demonstratively false that women are as equally strong as men.

0:06:42.8 DK: When people start putting demonstratively false stuff on their packages for political reasons, we get very, very, very angry. You wanna have women's month, that's great. You wanna replace the Brawny man with a different character? That's fine. Over time, capitalism will tell you if people stop buying your product or not. What I'm telling you is don't insult your client base. That's all. So you guys might wanna think about that. If your client base is gonna be strong alpha-type men that look like lumberjacks, stick with it. If you want to make paper towels for lesbians, and I say that just because these are the only women I know that wear lumber jackets, that's great too. But pick your audience. And once you pick them, don't insult them. Because once you leave us, we're done. I'm buying my paper towels now from Home Depot. Thank you.

0:07:51.1 DK: The best part of that has to be where she seem surprised that my package was left over from a campaign that they did months ago, like it never occurred to them to check to see how well those packages sell. The reality is, those packages are still on the shelf because people aren't buying them. They've been buying the packages with the lumberjack. So the ones with the girls sit there forever, even though they came out months ago. But I guess the geniuses in the marketing department for Brawny either didn't do that calculation, or just don't care. I wanna give you guys some ground rules too, because I realize that I am basically encouraging you to make crank calls. Number one thing you need to know if you're gonna do such things, which is very easy, you can pull up these people's customer support number on the internet. Number one, is if you're going to record the call as I did, and check with your lawyer and the laws in your state, you don't have to tell them that you're recording the call if when you call into their system, it says that they're recording the call, which is just about every customer support on the planet. So that's the first thing you need to know.

0:09:13.7 DK: Number two, try to stay as calm as you can. Because if you get upset, the other side will stop listening to your logical arguments. They might not get your logical arguments anyways. And the other thing is, never ever attack someone personally. Realize that, number one, the customer support agent you're talking to probably had nothing to do with it. So like in the case of Brawny, the customer support rep, they had nothing to do with a marketing plan. They weren't personally responsible for that in any way. So don't tear into them for something that they're not personally responsible for. Don't attack them personally. Do what you called to do, attack the logical flaws in their brand. It's crank calling for adults, and it's fun. And it's the only way that we're gonna start pushing back on some of this stupidity. It's out of control, and it's time to start pushing back. I'll keep the videos coming.

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