Dollar Shave Club: $1B in 4 years

What business does a razor company have being this good at marketing?

When we think of traditional advertising for razor blades, we think of some montage of a dude, doing Manly Activity ™. Cut to a close-up of him shaving in the mirror, with little to no context of how the two activities relate to one another.

Aside from Manliness ™ (of course).

Dollar Shave Club did the total opposite.

Which is how they positioned themselves as shaving's next best thing. And their success story is one for the books.

Dollar Shave Club burst onto the scene in 2011 after founder Michael Dubin was fed up with paying too much for razors every month. The product was simple: offer wallet-friendly razors in a subscription-based model.

Nothing fancy or over the top. No bespoke branding or influencer campaign.

All they had was a great product and $4500.

That $4500 was the budget for their first video. And it was enough to take Dollar Shave Club from unknown to iconic and send shockwaves through the industry.

The video featured Dubin walking around their warehouse, hilariously proclaiming all the reasons DSC is the best razor option. It quickly gained several million views and excessive media coverage.

Why?

Aside from the fact that Michael is SO fricken funny, the video is 'textbook perfect.'

Here's what it does so well:

• It uses humour as a weapon. Mocking The Big Guys in the industry resonated with viewers who were already eye-rolling at all the marketing fluff out there.

• It communicates the value proposition in the first 10 seconds. 'For $1 a month, we send high quality razors right to your door.' Straight to the point. Love it.

• It packs a punch(line): 'Are our blades good? No. Our blades are f***ing great.' You can’t beat it. 10/10.

And the ad was a smashing success.

The day the video came out, Dollar Shave Club's server crashed because it couldn’t handle their website traffic. The day after that, the company gained 12,000 new customers at $1 per month for its subscription razor service. This translated to $144,000 in annual recurring revenue overnight.

But their success wasn't just about a clever ad.

DSC created an incredibly disruptive product. They identified a customer pain point--frustration with overpriced and over-engineered razors sold by giant brands like Gillette.

Dollar Shave Club's message was simple--high-quality products shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. A subscription-based model, delivering high-quality razors directly to customers at a FRACTION of the price, was a direct fix for this. And the convenience and cost-saving element was a huge win.

And this disruption had a ripple effect on the razor industry.

Turns out, Dollar Shave Club was doing GOD'S WORK. Their success meant major razor companies had to re-evaluate their pricing strategies and marketing tactics. It forced them to acknowledge the shift in their consumers’ preferences towards convenience and value.

The effects? Increased price competition. A larger emphasis on value. And the growth of direct-to-consumer products.

What can we learn from our clean-shaven friends?

Given their uber-successful branding strategy, it’s no surprise that Dollar Shave Club was acquired in 2016 by industry giant Unilever for $1 billion in CASH. Keep in mind that was only 4 years after their iconic video went viral.

Of course, their story offers some pretty valuable lessons to business of all sizes:

• Challenge the status quo. Don't be afraid to question existing practices and identify customer pain points. Your consumers will love you for breaking the mould.

• Embrace creativity. A bold and creative approach can disrupt even the most established of industries. Audiences always appreciate a fresh take.

• Focus on value: If something annoys you, it probably annoys your audience. So provide a solution that delivers real value to your customers at a competitive price.

I could keep yapping, but I’ll shave it for later (see what I did there.)

-Sophie, Copywriter