This e-commerce company knocked out a 100-year-old competitor with one homemade digital video ad.

In 2012, the founder of Dollar Shave Club had just secured funding from major VCs. To follow the announcement, they needed a launch video to drive subscribers. With less than 5k and one day of shooting, they were able to create something that shaped the way hero-style digital ads were made for the next decade.

On March 6th, 2012, they released “Our Blades Are F#C#ING Great, a promo video that capitalized on an air-tight script performed by the founder Michael Dubin. The video contained a series of witty one-liners and concise value propositions, and the response was immediate.

Dollar Shave Club’s website quickly crashed due to unforeseen traffic. When they finally got it back up, they discovered that they had 12k new subscribers. The video kept getting more views, racking up 5 million views in 90 days. Less than 5 years later Dollar Shave Club has well over 4 million subscribers and was sold to Unilever for over a billion dollars.

This proves that a big budget is not required to succeed in digital advertising. A good story and some theatrics are all it takes.