Jim Nail says, “When I read the news of Unilever buying Dollar Shave Club I couldn’t help but think of an advisory session I did for a big CPG firm with colleagues Melissa Parrish and Brigitte Majewski a few months ago. One big topic of conversation was how to build a brand today in a media and marketing world that is so fragmented. We had used Dollar Shave Club as an example of how the rules have changed in the post-digital era.

And then I came across this post on the Stratechery blog that analyzes DSC and its disruptive strategy extraordinarily well.

I can’t help but read from this the end of the mass marketing era whose rules P&G is rightly famous for codifying and rigorously training its brand managers in. My conclusions from this example include:

The end of product innovation. Really interesting story about how Gillette’s 5-blade razor bombed. Basically, products reach a point of development that no further improvement is needed. Or at least the added cost of the innovative product didn’t bring commensurate increase in performance to justify it”.

Unilever Buys Dollar Shave Club: The End Of The Mass Marketing Era?

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