Dollar Shave Club's $4,500 Video Broke Its Site

Everybody is talking about Dollar Shave Club, the site that launched on Tuesday and promises to send you a month's supply of razor blades for a buck plus shipping. The premise is sexy enough that that fact alone might have grabbed them plenty of new business, but we're betting the hilarious promo video didn't hurt. It feels Old Spice-y (more tennis, fewer horses) but cost $4500 to make. On the first day, Business Insider says, the site crashed from interest. Dollar Shave Club still managed to sign up 5,000 subscribers that day, which was Tuesday. Now they're up to 12,000. CEO Michael Dubin told BI: The wonderful thing about Dollar Shave Club is that we get to tell a unique story these days and build a unique brand because we're on the internet and because the rules are different there. We can be irreverent, but we can be direct. If you look at the video, we are communicating the whole time the product and service benefits. We're talking about product and pricing. We're talking about convenience. Yes, there's a couple of jokes that don't talk about the business there, but our goal with creating the video was to teach people about our business. And give them a laugh at the same time and that's going to make them remember it more. I don't see humor as a conflict. I see it as a vehicle to communicate those same points that other people are doing in a very dry way. Is there a line that you can cross and it becomes too funny? No I don't think you can be too funny, but I think you can get too sloppy, but we're never going to get sloppy. We're always going to be very communicative with our customer about their product benefits. I'm sure we'll make mistakes along the line and we'll be very direct about that as well. Buying your razors doesn't have to be a boring, humorless experience. In my opinion nothing should be a boring, humorless experience. If I can make five minutes out of everybody's month an enjoyable five minutes and they get a great shave on the other end of that, then I'm really happy and I've done my job. For more about this startup, read the interview. Just a reminder that a really slick-looking video can have a huge impact with not very much money.

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Dollar Shave Club's $4,500 Video Broke Its Site

Rachel Kaufman

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Rachel Kaufman