Our Blades Are F***ing Great
Dollar Shave Club2012
Our Blades Are F***ing Great is a 2012 launch video (YouTube) for Dollar Shave Club, created in-house (written by founder Michael Dubin; co-directed with Lucia Aniello).
The line
Our blades are f***ing great.
Why it works
The $4,500 video that built a billion-dollar company. On March 6, 2012, founder Michael Dubin — an improv-trained marketer — released a deadpan warehouse tour ("Are the blades any good? No. Our blades are f***ing great.") shot by a friend in one day. The site crashed within hours; 12,000 orders arrived in 48 hours; and four years later Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club for a reported $1 billion. It is studied as the founding case of founder-as-performer direct-to-consumer marketing: the video simultaneously explained the subscription model, attacked razor-industry economics, and established a brand voice — proving a startup could beat a century-old category leader's media budget with one perfectly written minute.
Techniques
- Humour A deadpan founder tours his warehouse delivering blunt one-liners, the most famous being his profane verdict on his own blades.
- Plain folks Shot by a friend in a warehouse for a few thousand dollars, the founder's straight-talking pitch presents the startup as unpretentious and down to earth.
- Comparison The video takes aim at the economics of the established razor industry, positioning the subscription as the sensible alternative to a century-old category leader.
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