Breaking Classic Ad Trends for Success

We've all seen a commercial for a man's razor before. It generally consists of some man, often a celebrity, showing off his perfectly shaven face and a description of how great it feels. Or maybe a man just out of the shower shaving his face to perfect precision and going out with some ladies. Either way they are always predictable.

When you think about it, this kind of advertising may be effective, but it also makes it difficult to set yourself apart from the competition. This seems to be the classic way to market a razor or razor blade, with the only variation being the celebrity featured, the setting of the ad, or the humor in the ad.

With the Dollar Shave Club you can kiss all that goodbye. This unique concept of paying as little as a dollar (plus shipping & handling) for a months worth of razor blades, is something that demands attention. They offer three types of blades with fun and unique names for a slightly higher price. No matter if you want "The Humble Twin," "The 4X," or "The Executive" the price is competitive and they deliver the blades right to your door.

The real unique part of the business is the video advertisements which hardly feature their product.



Their advertisements explain how great the blades are and at the same time emphasize the simplicity of them. They market their product as a cheap, convenient, high quality product that is simplified so you don't have to worry about all the extra bells and whistles.

The ad is extremely humorous, clever, and at the same time makes absolute sense. It explains to consumers why they should join the Dollar Shave Club and what they get out of it. Simply a great shave for a great price.

Dollar Shave Club's latest product - One Wipe Charlies are marketed in a similarly clever way emphasizing , ease, convenience, and practicality in a very impractical way.


Shave Time. Shave Money.

A Dynamic Banner Ad is Changing the Game

My first two blogs were about Red Bull & GoPro. Their position as an active company easily coincides with their advertising. It's "simple" for them. The focus is obvious, because they SHOULD coincide with one another. This focus is not as simple for many other companies.

As I was watching Mad Men recently I watched Peggy wrestle for a great Heinz Beans' campaign. By the time Heinz was satisfied it seemed they had been shown everything under the sun. From "The Art of Supper" with a bean ballet to "Some Things Never Change" pitching a tradition idea of passing meals across generations. Many companies these days are forced to be more creative with their advertising, to branch out and try something bold, unique, new, and fun.

With digital advertising banner ads and pay per click (PPC) ads being the overwhelming majority of advertising online today it also brings a new dilemma to certain companies. Many food companies for example aren't trying to make sales online, a click to their website isn't worth as much as it is to any Ecommerce site. Their ads are more to keep the brand name in mind when the consumer makes their next visit to the store.

Instead of measuring what most companies have found to be the more important online advertising metric - click through rate (CTR) and cost per conversion - these companies would rather focus on the old school metric - impressions.


This dynamic ad by Pringles is a flawless example of this. A consumer can click through the story for 5 or more minutes and still not generate a conversion or even a higher click through rate. In fact the banner ad won't even take you to Pringles' website, but for Pringles this is okay.

How much benefit is a visit to the Pringles home page going to give them anyways? That visit is really only valuable to the consumer if they are looking for additional product flavors, nutritional information, or want to receive email updates about their favorite snack. It is only valuable to Pringles if the consumer is searching for a place to sign up for those email updates.

The point is, Pringles would much rather stick in the consumers' head than to have a high average amount of time spent on their website, and this ad will do that!

Enjoy!