Gillette spokesman Damon Jones said his company became aware of the Dollar Shave Club the day it launched because of the Internet buzz. He said the shaving giant isn’t worried about losing market share, in part because other subscription-based companies have tried and failed, he said.

That passage comes from a Wall Street Journal article from last year about upstart Dollar Shave Club. Here’s their pitch video:

It’s funny, but they use that humor to hit on a nerve. I’m a guy. I shave. I’ve been shaving since I was 12. Shaving innovation basically comes in one flavor: the number of blades. This has been spoofed time and again. Sure, there have been some other attempts. We have the vibrating handle, the strip that tells us when it’s time to change the blade and a variety of gels and creams to make the shaving smoother. Basically, there’s not a lot of innovation going on.

The Gillette spokesman’s comments show you just how shortsighted companies can be. It’s when you dismiss your competition that they sneak up on you.

When Dollar Shave Club launched, I was intrigued, but I didn’t order. The pricing was certainly there, but I was skeptical on the quality. Several of my friends purchased and became Dollar Shave Club members. I wish I knew what their sales looked like, but from this article, it looks like Dollar Shave Club is surviving, but not thriving.

Fast forward, nearly a full year and I think we’re really starting to see the disruption happen. The co-founders of Warby Parker, recently launched Harry’s, a more premium version of Dollar Shave Club. It wasn’t until I read this story that I decided to take the plunge. I’m always a person who gets intrigued with the backstory of brands. It’s why I’m a fan of Panerai and not such a fan of Rolex. The Panerai backstory is fascinating. They started as a company who supplied watches to the Italian Navy. The watches are hand made and they only make a limited number each year. There’s no mass production.

When you read up on the Harry’s story, it becomes easy to see why I was intrigued. I’m also a geek and when I see something new I inherently want to try it. So a few weeks ago I put in an order for a Harry’s Winston handle and a 12-pack of blades. For the past 2 weeks I’ve used nothing but Harry’s, switching from the Gillette Mach 3 I’ve used for years, and here’s my thoughts.

1. I love the model. I ordered online and everything showed up in 3 days. That’s pretty fast and the shipping was free. You can also choose to have Harry’s auto send you replacement blades at a time interval of your convenience.
2. The packaging was clean and simple. Definitely more attractive than the infuriating and nearly impossible to open hard plastic that current razors and handles are packaged in.
3. I can only speak to the Winston handle. They also sell a handle called the Truman. The Winston is surprisingly light and perfectly balanced. If you’ve ever played baseball and picked up a perfectly balanced bat, you know what I mean when I say the feeling is perfect and immediate.
4. The blades are awesome. Haven’t nicked myself once. I’ve found you get about 4 really great shaves from each blade and then 2 more good/solid shaves. Pretty good. In comparison, I’d say I get about 2 great shaves from my Mach 3 and another 2 solid shaves thereafter.
5. From a pricing standpoint, it’s a no-brainer. The 12-pack from Harry’s put the per blade cost at $1.67, which means each shave costs $0.28. Compare that against the Gillette Mach 3, where an 8-pack costs $35.69 and a 4-pack costs $17.99. That makes the cost of a Gillette “12-pack” $53.68 for a per razor cost of $4.47 and a per shave cost of $1.12. That’s 4X the cost of Harry’s.

Net-net, you get a better shave, with razors that last longer and are 4X cheaper than the market leader. We’re in a great time right now. We’re seeing the disruption of EVERYTHING. I mean everything. From what Square is doing to disrupt payments to Amazon’s continue disruption of retail.

Harry’s is for real. It might not last. It might not make it. But, if Gillette thinks they can rest on innovation or simply continue to offer more blades on each razor, they’ll learn the harsh lessons of Kodak and Blockbuster. You can’t predict what the next competitive threat will be, but you can be rest assured, there will be a continued line of competitors looking to take your lunch money. What Gillette and many other established market leaders seem to forget is that what got you here, won’t get you there. You can’t rest of what’s worked in the past. Looking at your current market share or your size as a reason for why a competitor isn’t a threat, is simply blind arrogance. We’re all familiar with David’s victory over Goliath. Today, there’s not just 1 David to compete against, there’s thousands…and they keep coming…from everywhere.

You can choose to drive the disruption or you can choose to react to the disruption created by others. I recommend driving the disruption.

In 2009 I singled out a major problem with twitter…hashtags. That same problem exists today. You and I could be both watching the Grammy’s and tweeting about it. You might be using the hashtag #grammys and I might be using #grammys13. People following each hashtag will be seeing 2 very different conversations, although both hashtags are talking about the same topic.

In 2009, sponsored tweets didn’t exist. It’s existence today and use by companies softened the “chaos of hashtags.” But, the real game changer was the integration of hashtags into mainstream media, like TV shows. If you’ve somehow missed this, turn on American Idol, look at the lower right hand corner and you’ll see a prominently placed hashtag. That hashtag is telling all the people watching to centralize their conversation on twitter against that hashtag. Smart. But, that only helped close the gap; it didn’t eliminate it.

I think the big effort to close the gap came from Nike. No surprise there. Nike is one of the few organizations with the ability to see around the corner, tap into everyday culture and push the bounds of marketing. On January 1, 2013, after being woefully dormant on social media, they came to the party in a big way with their #makeitcount campaign. The hashtag was used in print, tv and of course twitter. But, in the first steps of its kind, it was also used in Instagram. Since launching, Nike’s account rocketed to the top of the most followed Instagram account. More importantly #makeitcount permeated society and became a way people from all walks of life could share their athletic efforts…however big or small.

There’s a general rule in marketing, when Nike does it, the evolution of marketing advances, but people will say, “yeah, but that’s Nike. We’re not Nike.” So the next thing that needs to happen is for P&G or Coke to do whatever Nike did. For whatever reason, that’s the validation we seem to need as a marketing community, before we try something different. Well, if Nike was the first shoed to drop, here’s the other foot:

Yes, you’re reading that right. It’s a hashtag on packaging. What? Yep, a hashtag on packaging. The hashtag is part of a pretty amazing campaign from Coke, called #showyourheart. It would seem that Coke is really on trend here, especially with Facebook’s very recent announcement that they will begin using hashtags as a way to search their social graph.

Admittedly, as a marketer who likes to push boundaries, I’m jealous of this effort from Coke. I think it’s smart, on trend, a bit edgy and different. That’s why we got into marketing right? Well, besides to drive the business. You get my point. What Coke did wasn’t just smart, it was cost efficient. It’s almost zero cost to change the printing plate to allow for the inclusion of a hashtag. Even if you didn’t want to go that BIG with the inclusion, you could simply replace the URL on the back of the can, box, pouch, bag, etc. with the hashtag…as an experiment. Folks, this is real time test and learn…at almost no cost. It’s certainly a less costly investment than Oreo’s Super Bowl ad with the Instagram hashtag call to action. For those of you who only paid attention to their “dunk in the dark” tweet, yes Oreo had a Super Bowl ad

In 4 years, hashtags have gone from something geeky to something that’s nearly commonplace language. What we’re seeing with Coke is the tip of the iceberg. With Coke and Nike invested, it’s only a matter of time before everyone else jumps into the pond. My advice, get there fast, while it’s still new, fresh, different and likely to generate an action. The minute it becomes too mainstream you’ll see conversion rates decrease as consumers are overwhelmed with options. Also, don’t stop at hashtags. We’ve seen the evolution of digital calls to action go from “AOL keyword {insert keyword} to URLs to Facebook icons to, now, hashtags. Something else will replace it.

The big lesson here is look for ways to bind your marketing efforts together. If you want to call it, integrating “paid, owned and earned,” have at it. Personally, I think those are bad labels, but if it’s what you need to think about integrating your efforts, great. At the intersection of culture and communication is the opportunity to stretch your dollars and make your marketing all the more effective.

Get your track shoes on. It’s going to accelerate and change fast. #hashtagsarenowthelanguagethatbindsus