Traditionally, Dollar Shave Club campaigns have centered on company co-Founder and Chief Executive Michael Dubin.
But the newest promotion for One Wipe Charlies, the company’s flushable wipes, drops Dubin and centers instead on NFL centers.
Snappers from four football teams – Eric Wood of the Buffalo Bills; Nick Hardwick, San Diego Chargers; Travis Frederick, Dallas Cowboys; and John Sullivan, Minnesota Vikings – have all signed on for the “Clean Snap” campaign.
The marketing push will have the linemen featured on billboards and radio ads in their local markets. There’s also a promotion in which Dollar Shave Club will donate a dollar to charity for each clean (i.e. non-fumbled) snap the centers make.
Picking centers for the company’s first non-Dubin campaign was an obvious call for the co-founder.
“Everybody’s got their eyes on their asses all day long,” Dubin said. “It made sense to choose them as much as anybody else to partner with.”
Dubin revealed there was some business marketing strategy with the particular choices. Each center the company picked plays in a different region of the country, and by limiting the number to four, Dollar Shave was able to go directly though the players and avoid a costly partnership with the NFL.
One Wipe Charlies were released in June as Dollar Shave’s first non-shaving product. The company built its business as a monthly subscription service sending a pack of razors in the mail. While Dubin didn’t reveal how well the flushable wipes have done since the roll-out, he said sales have outpaced the company’s expectations. “They’ve been selling like crazy.”
Also, no word from Dubin about how much the big men are being paid for participating in the campaign. Though, as he points out, centers are a lot cheaper than quarterbacks. And anyway, for this product, that’s even better.
“The centers are the unsung heroes, the little guys,” Dubin said. “We wanted to find someone who was appropriate in terms of stature and notoriety.”