(CBS News) -- After three decades of touting Gillette razors as part of being an alpha male, Procter & Gamble is doing an about-face with an ad that has the consumer-products company jumping into the cultural wars with both feet.
Gillette said in a news release announcing the campaign that the company has a "responsibility to make sure we are promoting positive, attainable, inclusive and healthy versions on what it means to be a man." Gillette included a pledge to donate $1 million annually for the next three years to a nonprofit devoted to helping men "achieve their personal 'best.'" The Boys and Girls Club of America will be the first recipient, according to Adweek.
As with Nike's controversial advertising campaign featuring former NFL star Colin Kaepernick, Gillette's "The Best Men Can Be" campaign inspired backlash on social media and calls for a boycott of its products.
British TV personality Piers Morgan was among the higher-profile objectors to the ad, posting, "this absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity."
Christina Sommers, a scholar at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, took to Twitter to slam both the ad and a prominent liberal arts college in Ohio.
Released on Sunday, the video's YouTube page as of Tuesday afternoon had 343,000 dislikes and 83,000 likes.