Rita McGrath
speaker
126 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard 8 Jun
Rita McGrath’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And they were basically able to pull off the strategy unthinkable. They maintained a competitive advantage for literally decades. They were the dominant player.
Well, Mark has this interesting career where he buys stuff from one part of the world and sells it for a profit in another. And as you mentioned, he was trying to unload this set of decent quality, not exceptional, but decent quality razors that were made by a South Korean manufacturer.
Well, Mike Dubin at the time was kind of a failed entrepreneur. He found his way into marketing. He was doing a lot of video work. He tried to turn his life around. He applied to the Columbia Business School. I'm sad to say we rejected him, which is not so happy. But the two guys get to talking over what I presume is some adult beverages.
And what they start thinking about is if you were going to try to sell razors in this day and age, in 2010, you know, we've had e-commerce for a while by then. We've had home delivery of just about everything. Why would you do it the way Gillette did it? Gillette's business model was basically you invest in high-end R&D. that allows you to charge higher prices for the great products that ensue.
And then you use your armies of marketing people to get these things in just the right places in the retail store. And in 1990, when they first introduced the sensor, this was revolutionary. The technology was patented. Nobody else could do it. By 2010, when this conversation happens, the world has changed completely.
Other companies had shown that direct-to-consumer could work, which is a company shipping stuff directly to your door and developing a personal relationship with you. Don't forget, Gillette's main relationships would be like with Walmart, right? They don't actually get all the way to the end customer. And so it gives those DTC, as we call them, companies a big advantage.
And he had quite a bit of experience with wholesaling, with retailing, and Dubin knew the power of the internet. So it was that kind of magical moment where the possibilities have really changed. And now you could see a niche in the market where you could actually create something that was entirely new.
They ignored them.
um gillette's position now you know as you said in the introduction um if you've had a smooth ship for a long time i mean if you're an executive at gillette at that time what are you thinking about you're thinking about two blades versus three blades three blades versus four you're thinking about how much ad placement do i place in television right because we hadn't yet realized television is kind of on the way out in terms of reaching lots of people especially young people um so your whole mental capacity is taken up with those kinds of questions you're not
looking for what's the hot new thing that might introduce a completely different variable into your sales process.
Oh, they loved it. This thing went completely viral on YouTube. And as you probably could hear, Mike's a very... personable guy. He's very approachable. And when you think about most of corporate America television ads, you know, they've been run through the PR department and legal and compliance.
And, you know, they're not really speaking directly to you, the customer, whereas Mike was a master of that and did so for a long time. So this was really his first introduction to the main stage of speaking directly to his target audience, which were younger men, Right. And Mike also realized that a lot of these young guys were very frustrated at the experience Gillette was offering.
You had to go to a store. Razors are expensive and they're small. So they're catnip for shoplifters. And so what do the stores do? They lock them up in razor fortresses. So you're standing around on a Saturday morning waiting for the friendly, helpful retail employee who's got the keys to come help you unleash this thing.
I mean, it's just a really horrible experience as opposed to the convenience of having them just show up on your doorstep.
I get the sense from that ad that Gillette took itself more seriously than Dollar Shave Club, Rita.
Oh, absolutely. And so did many other incumbent firms at the time. As I said, you got legal, you got compliance. Everybody's saying if the ad is OK, people are worried about brand image. You know, the fact that Mike's video was literally filmed in his warehouse with him wandering around like. And it throws in lots of humorous elements, like a big stuffed teddy bear.
And he says, hey, you don't need to pay Roger Federer's salary if you buy from us. I mean, he was really poking Gillette in the nose on that. And yes, I think a lot of the big consumer product brands at the time, you know, celebrity endorsements, a big deal. I don't know how much they paid Federer, but I'm sure it was a lot of...
Oh, the response was really negative. People felt it was finger pointing. People felt it was kind of accusatory. Instead of their historical positioning, which was the best a man can get, this is like the worst a man can be, right?
Better, better. They picked up many of the segments that found shopping in the stores to be irritating. There are some men who felt the quality of the shave was better using their traditional Gillette blades. And so they were able to kind of mount a rear guard there. But that's a defensive action. That's not really winning and taking the offensive. It really just stops the bleeding.
When Procter & Gamble bought Gillette in 2005, they spent $57 billion for it. Dollar Shave Club got its going with like Dubin's life savings of $35,000. I mean, in the past, it would be inconceivable that a tiny little upstart literally running out of his apartment, sticking on labels on packages by hand could be... even a modest threat to Mighty Gillette.
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