Hairy Old Tug-Boat Captain

The tide is turning. The several decades of advertisments depicting stupid men, breadwinners all, with overpowering, competent superwives and children who are more mature than dad, have disgraced our families just to sell products. It has been worse than using scantily clad young women using their flesh to do the same. But now a new chapter may be opening, with a depiction of Good Men.

Two good men in fact.

The Gillette company has an advert, which I am glad to see has won awards, and Doug Mainwairing showed it to us in the US Bar today. I was really pleased. It scored well on several fronts with the customers.

It uses respect and Love, rather than sex.

Gillette shaving commercial shows beautiful bond between father and son

A beautifully produced commercial offered by Gillette portrays the bond between an elderly father and his son, offering a sharp contrast to the loud forces promoting euthanasia.   

 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/gillette-shaving-commercial-shows-beautiful-bond-between-father-and-son

“In the past 100 years, over 4,000 razors have been designed to shave yourself. There have been 0 designed with the intent to shave someone else. Until now,” explains the razor blade manufacturer, introducing “the first razor designed for assisted shaving.”

While Gillette’s intent is to identify a new market in which to expand its sales, the commercial has a value that extends far beyond increased market share and profits.  

The very moving commercial shows a middle-aged son getting his elderly dad up in the morning and the painstaking, loving daily grooming routine which follows.  

“My Dad had a stroke, and now he can’t get around and he needs me to help him out,” explains son Kristian Rex. “I’d do anything, anything for him.”

What a name !! Follower of Christ, King ! 

“There’s a definite role reversal that happens,” he continues. “I have to wake him up in the morning, groom him, shower and shave him.”  

The younger Rex adds that while confronting that reversal is scary, “it’s actually an honor to do that for your father, because he did it for me when I was a kid. It’s very humbling to take him and change his clothes and give him a shower.  

It’s the kind of thing that you do out of love.”

“I’m one of the lucky ones,” notes Rex.  “A lot of my friends my age do not have their dads.” 

“He looks up at me after I’ve poured love on him for the whole day and he says, 

‘I don’t know what I did to deserve you,’” 

Rex says, choking back tears. “And I say, ‘Dad, I got you. I got you, dad.’”

The ad has garnered multiple industry awards at the Cannes Lion Festival, in the categories of Health and Wellness, Promo and Activation, and Non-Fiction Entertainment.

A spontaneous round of applause erupted, drawing customers from other bars.

OK. It is to sell razors. And a new 'overarm' method. Gillette is an old' brand itself and was not beyond using some underhand - or is that underarm - tactics to increase market share. The tale is told of the shaving blade salesman in the 1940's, keen to win the award for most sales in a 'territory', that hit on the ploy to get women to buy razors and blades by claiming that they would be sexier without underarm hair.  It worked. Sales went up substantially and now we have seen even lower hair targetted.

Kristian's dad was a young man of that era but I doubt his work put him amongst clean-shaven young women, as he plied his very hard work on the rivers towing and pushing big ships with his tug.

It was hard work and before the days of the Voith Schneider propulsion system. 

What ? You have never heard of it?

It is a cyclorotor, cycloidal rotor, cycloidal propeller or cyclogiro: a fluid propulsion device that converts shaft power into the acceleration of a fluid using a rotating axis perpendicular to the direction of fluid motion. 

It uses several blades with a spanwise axis parallel to the axis of rotation and perpendicular to the direction of fluid motion. These blades are cyclically pitched twice per revolution to produce force (thrust or lift) in any direction normal to the axis of rotation. 

Cyclorotors are used for propulsion, lift, and control on air and water vehicles. An aircraft using cyclorotors as the primary source of lift, propulsion, and control is known as a cyclogyro. The patented application, used on the ships with particular actuation mechanisms both mechanics or hydraulics is named from the name of the German company that produces them: Voith–Schneider cycloidal propellers.

Well here is a little about it for you. 

Men. Working hard. Making a world fit to live in for superwives and kids who demean them daily.

Respect your father.

Love your father.

Both of them. 

You have a Father above too, who provides the Ale.

So drink up and be thankful.

Pax