Hasta La Creative!

Following a string of viral digital ads, Dollar Shave Club is making the leap to broadcast television.

The move follows the company’s recent success, as, according to founder and CEO Michael Dubin, the brand “finished October with 1.1 million active subscribers, $7.2 million in monthly sales and what the company estimates as a 10% volume share of U.S. cartridges.” Dollar Shave Club also recently raised $50 million in venture capital funding.

“It’s no secret that advertising on television is a great tool in building your brand,” Dubin told AdAge. “Some of the messages we wanted to communicate felt really right for television.”

Dubin declined to specify if the budget for the broadcast campaign came from revenue or the recent round of venture capital funding. A former improv comic, Dubin co-wrote the ad, entitled “Security” with Alec Brownstein, Dollar Shave Club’s creative director. Radical Media’s Steve Miller, who has worked on the “Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign, directed the spot. “Security” pokes fun at the extreme lengths many stores go through to keep their razors from being stolen, often placing them under lock and key. “It’s almost like they don’t want you to buy their razors,” the ad jokes. A second spot, “Free Gift” takes a similar approach, employing mocking humor. (more…)

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With all the hullabaloo surrounding the Campbell Ewald news and everything else under the sun yesterday, forgot Whit Hiler‘s note to us that, yes, brands have latched on, literally, to his “Beardvertising” effort. Hiler, of course, is one of the parties involved in the “Kentucky Kicks Ass” tourism campaign launched towards the end of last year. Two months ago, the creative and his agency Lexington, KY-based agency Cornett Integrated Marketing Solutions decided to launch an effort called “Beardvertising,” in which still-patent-pending “beardboards”–or miniature billboards–would be placed on willing participants’ beards.

Well, suffice it to say, we were skeptical, but now Hiler tells us that “Beardvertising” is building momentum, in a sense, in that the project has nabbed brands including A&W Restaurants and most recently (and aptly enough), Dollar Shave Club. In a statement, the latter company’s founder Michael Dubin says, “We’re excited to be building our business of beardlessness with these badass, bushy Beardboards.” Yesterday, the Beardvertising effort officially took off with 25 participants from around the U.S. who will sport beardboards, and Hiler says there are 1,400 more “eager guys” willing to participate. Perhaps one of the most prominent beardvertisers for DSC thus far is Gerald Okamura (below), who you may recognize from films including Big Trouble in Little China and Showdown in Little Tokyo.

You can check out more Beardvertising hijinks on Instagram here.

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