You weren’t there to remember this , but our former employer - nameless financial services behemoth - had a corporate tie-in with the Matthew Broderick Godzilla. The connection between selling life insurance and a Japanese monster destroying NYC was tenuous at best. But the movie’s marketing slogan “Size Matters”! caused a huge backlash among our conservative policyholders and sales force who railed at the suggestively smutty undertones. (It was meant to reference the company’s status as the then-largest life insurer in the US.) Progressive women employees like myself were also offended at the not-so-subtle reference to the male anatomy, which Neanderthal men threw in our faces daily. When the film tanked at the box office, despite being a predicted summer blockbuster, the executive (a man) who approved the campaign was summarily let go and the company swiftly disengaged itself from the movie. For the remainder of my time at said company the Godzilla debacle was spoken of in whispered tones, the corporate marketing Edsel of its day. Good old Godzilla defeated the outsized dreams of male executives, shrunk our reputation as a “family, not a company”, and tilted our relationship with massively popular our canine cartoon mascot. Size mattered, alright.
You weren’t there to remember this , but our former employer - nameless financial services behemoth - had a corporate tie-in with the Matthew Broderick Godzilla. The connection between selling life insurance and a Japanese monster destroying NYC was tenuous at best. But the movie’s marketing slogan “Size Matters”! caused a huge backlash among our conservative policyholders and sales force who railed at the suggestively smutty undertones. (It was meant to reference the company’s status as the then-largest life insurer in the US.) Progressive women employees like myself were also offended at the not-so-subtle reference to the male anatomy, which Neanderthal men threw in our faces daily. When the film tanked at the box office, despite being a predicted summer blockbuster, the executive (a man) who approved the campaign was summarily let go and the company swiftly disengaged itself from the movie. For the remainder of my time at said company the Godzilla debacle was spoken of in whispered tones, the corporate marketing Edsel of its day. Good old Godzilla defeated the outsized dreams of male executives, shrunk our reputation as a “family, not a company”, and tilted our relationship with massively popular our canine cartoon mascot. Size mattered, alright.