When Unilever paid an astounding $1 billion last week for Dollar Shave Club, a lean, young start-up that markets razors, red flags should have shot up within companies all across the country.
As the author Steven Davidoff Solomon at the New York Times explains in this post, the purchase shows that technology is reshaping how companies operate—smaller, nimble, with fewer employees—a real and growing threat to larger companies. These startups are delivering a refreshing wave of disruptive marketing and riding off with new, innovative and unique ideas that are swamping out old ways of doing things.
Dollar Shave Club, just five years old, took a simple idea—a subscription-based club that allows subscribers to regularly order razors online for a fraction of the retail cost—and brought a real challenge to Gillette, which had dominated the market. This article takes a look at how Dollar Shave Club came to be and what the $1 billion purchase means to you, your company and your marketing.
Watch the comical Dollar Shave Club marketing video, “DollarShaveClub.com – Our Blades Are F***ing Great,” that has delivered 24 million views and counting: