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Published April 25th 2016

Interview: Discussing the Importance of Brand Voice with Dollar Shave Club

How does a $615 million CPG giant keep its brand voice playful, witty, and above all, consistent? We spoke to Dollar Shave Club to find out.

Dollar Shave Club exploded onto the digital scene with a 90 second YouTube spot back in March 2012.

The video was watched more than 1 million times in just four days, and made Dollar Shave Club an internet sensation.

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We were delighted to interview Connie Yiu, Social Media Marketing Manager at the California-based company, about the importance of social intelligence and impeccable customer service within such a digitally innovative organization.


Social across multiple disciplines

As a 21st century business, social plays a fundamental role within Dollar Shave Club.

So much so, several departments within the organization have team members dedicated to social to collaborate and get its best content forward.

“As the social channel owner, I’m responsible for everything that gets posted organically to our social pages. The earned media is what I drive to create brand affinity and ‘stickiness’ to the Dollar Shave Club brand.” explains Yiu.

The member service team (Dollar Shave Club’s customer service team) also have a dedicated social team.

This team responds to absolutely every single comment and every tweet posted to Dollar Shave Club’s social channels. A commitment of this scale demonstrates just how valuable Dollar Shave Club views their social presence.

As the Social Media Manager, Connie works very closely with the member service (MS) social team.

“If an issue arises, the MS team and Marketing work closely together to tackle the issue, how to resolve it, and how to prevent this from happening again.”

Both the MS team and Connie create the appropriate strategy and messaging on how to best respond to tweets or comments, always having the brand voice in the forefront.

The importance of a consistent brand voice

The famous YouTube video projected Dollar Shave Club into the market. Instantly Dollar Shave Club’s brand, ethos, messaging and tone were clear to all.

Dollar Shave Club’s CEO Michael Dubin starred in and narrated the online commercial. Mike’s personality shone through and since the first airing of the video, Dollar Shave Club’s brand voice was cemented.

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Perhaps somewhat surprisingly for a business valued at $615 million in 2015, it was actually Mike who ran the social channels in the very beginning.

All posts and messages came direct from the CEO himself.

“Whenever we think of our brand voice on social, it’s always in Mike’s voice. We always ask ourselves, ‘what would Mike say?’

 

We want you to feel like you are talking to your friend. We describe Dollar Shave Club as the smartest, hippest, coolest guy at the best party.”

 

Connie Yiu, Social Media Marketing Manager, Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club’s brand voice is playful, smart, witty, quite feisty, funny. The organization is committed to portraying this persona consistently across all their messaging.

Having an in-house customer service team allows Dollar Shave Club to wholly own its brand voice and keeps the interest of their customers at the heart of the business.

“By having our MS team in-house, this gives us the flexibility to work closer together and cultivate new ideas in offering the best customer service and content out there.”


Continued digital innovation

The whole organization is aligned with the importance of social.

Having kicked off with a social campaign that exceeded all expectations, Dollar Shave Club wants to remain forward thinking and try different things to test the limits of social and optimize reach.

“In the future we want to continue putting out unexpected but thumb-stopping content on social. Much of our data uncovered in Brandwatch helped provide actual insights of what future campaigns can be about.”

Dollar Shave Club has bold ambitions for 2016. Social intelligence arms the organization with customer and competitor insights that will help it plan for future campaigns.

Connie ends, “As a start-up that’s forward thinking, we always try to stay ahead of the game, starting with the right tools like Brandwatch.”


A big thanks to Connie for speaking with us. This interview is one in a series with industry experts – you can expect more every week.


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