Have you seen the new ad for manscaping trimmers where a famous actor talks about how we treat our balls and how we should really treat our balls while removing unwanted hair in men’s nether regions?
Did you assume I’m talking about the new ad (January 2023) for Zlade manscaping trimmers starring Milind Soman?
Nope!
I was referring to the May 2021 ad by the brand called Manscaped for its Lawn Mover 4.0 manscaping trimmer, featuring British comedian Charlie Partridge.
The similarities between the ads are stark.
Both start with a note on how we treat our balls: Milind starts with ‘You and I are not the same. This is how you treat your balls…’, while Charlie starts with, ‘We need to talk about your balls…’.
Then, both ads launch into a series of metaphors of how we actually treat our balls, featuring progressively bizarre tools.
Milind goes with an orange peeler, a netted pouch, scissors, a chainsaw, and a blowtorch.
Charlie goes with a hedge shear, a blowtorch, and a grater!
The blowtorch is a common link.
For the grater, Charlie says, ‘If that’s what you are into’.
Milind says, ‘No nicks, or cuts… unless you like it that way’.
Milind demonstrates the Zlade trimmer by trimming the lawn (or what looks like synthetic turf). Manscape has used the device already.
If you watch both ads back-to-back, it is mighty obvious that the work done for Manscaped, by the agency Hell Yeah! has been used (euphemistically speaking) by Zlade, by the agency Anagram Digital (production agency: Karma).
But, let me counter that premise myself: aren’t the products exactly the same? After all, both are selling manscaping trimmers, a really niche product far removed from the otherwise broadly appealing facial trimmers sold by the likes of Gillette? How else should one pitch these products that are—to put it mildly—seen as ‘shame shame puppy shame’ products, much like condoms?
The answer to that would start with the kind of tone Manscaped chose and which eventually became its identity.
In the year Manscaped launched—2016—Gillette was communicating that its body razors were the first body razor built for male terrain, designed to go where face razors cannot! And the tone of the communication was like this:
The tone was strictly educational and informational, using animated figures and pixelated nether regions!
Manscaped, which had advertised more on social media between 2016 and 2018, went public with its full-fledged campaigns after being featured in the 10th series of Shark Tank US, in October 2018. In the show, the co-founder of Manscaped, Steve King (Paul Tran was the other founder) and his son Josh explained that Manscaped Lawn Mower can easily mow the tall grass growing around a plant… and when you trim the hedges, the tree stands taller.
This irreverent, quirky, and euphemistic tone differentiated it instantly from Gillette and any other brand.
Some of their earliest ads harp completely on this tone:
“No nicks, no cuts, on these coconuts”
One of their earliest ads was for a product called ‘Crop Preserver’, an anti-chafing ball deodorant!
You see the comments under the video on YouTube (over 9 million views) and you notice people going ga-ga over the really direct message, probably delivered so bluntly for the first time, and the really corny voice-over 🙂
The board meeting:
Get your bush under control:
The way they announce that it is water-proof (at 0:23) 🙂
Manspaced had latched on to this tone tightly, even roping in American comedian Pete Davis as the brand ambassador recently and he spoke with his balls as part of the ad!
In comparison, Zlade started by advertising their face razors in the most direct manner:
When they started advertising their Ballistic manscaping trimmer, it didn’t show a man and only 2 fruits – what seems like West Indian Gherkin, commonly known as maroon cucumber.
But with the Milind Soman ad, the brand makes a sudden leap, understandably so because it seems to have taken the same route as that of Manscaped.
One can still argue: all this is fine, but the products are the same. There are only two ways to communicate the benefits of a balls shaver – the Gillette way (no humor, direct education) and the Manscaped way (loaded with double-meaning humor). Why can’t Zlade use the latter since they make the same product in India?
Fair enough.
But even when using double-meaning humor for a product meant for men’s nether regions, there can be differentiation IF the intent was to be different and not to imitate.
For example, one of Manscaped’s products is the Crop Preserver, the anti-shafing balls deoderant. A rival to that product, or at least operating in the same region, product category-wise—and body-part-wise—is Gold Bond, a 100+-year-old product well-known as a cure for ‘jock itch’.
The same Zlade argument could be applied to Gold Bond as well… that they are targetting the same body part in men and there are only 2 ways to pitch – the serious, educational way, or the fun, innuendo-laden way.
Take a look at Gold Bond’s superlative ad from July 2021, made by the agency Terri & Sandy.
Observe the difference between even the largely similar tone of Manscaped and Gold Bond’s communication: the former goes all out directly funny while using some euphemisms, but the latter wants to stay sophisticated and intelligent even as it fully uses euphemisms as the device.
Or consider this Australian ad from 2015, made by the agency Clemenger BBDO, for Bonds, an underwear brand, which operates in the same region (it’s a playlist containing 3 ads).
Same region as Manscaped, but the tone of humor is decidedly higher, making you think and realize what is going on.
In the case of Manscaped, the tone they have chosen for themselves is the brand’s USP. Of course, it is replicable, as Zlade has demonstrated, but that doesn’t make Manscaped’s original choice any less inventive or unique. If anything, it reflects poorly on Zlade.
Zlade’s ad doesn’t make any effort to differentiate from the tone of Manscaped’s marketing. It could if it started with that premise. That is, by starting with, ‘this is the pitch by Manscaped. We have a similar product. How can we use double-meaning, innuendos, and/or euphemisms, and still not be a direct copy of Manscaped’s communication?’.
Instead, I guess Zlade just picked the lowest-hanging fru… balls.