Ever since I first saw Dollar Shave Club’s first ad, I was in love. Their marketing is genius. I was so in love with their ad that they really got my attention and made me wonder what their service was about, building on the introduction that they gave in the video.
Had I just seen the name “Dollar Shave Club” online, I almost certainly would have ignored it and passed on it, but DSC’s branding genius used the power of humour and social media to deliver their message.
The video above has been viewed over 18 million times and their follow-up, about their “One Wipe Charlies” has been seen nearly 3 million times and is equally representative of how powerful their brand is.
Dollar Shave Club has built up an impressive and loyal following, myself included, based largely on the successes of these social media campaigns. Aside from the fact that their products are actually decent quality, their branding has done a lot of the selling work for them: every step of every process has been carefully considered and given a dash of DSC humour.
I think that Dollar Shave Club is a great example of how branding can make or break you. Had they taken a different approach with their marketing, they could have very easily failed. Other examples that I can think of are Apple’s “PC vs Mac” campaign, Old Spice’s “The man your man could smell like” ad and Always’ “Like a girl” videos. These unquestionably popular campaigns have really made a difference to these companies, all thanks to how they were marketed.
