The razor blade industry is a lucrative business. At a fundamental level, men across the globe are touted products with the promise of comfort, better skin and a happier shaving experience. At the other end of the spectrum, advertisers use flash apartments, hot women and fast cars to sell the goods, frequently drafting in well-known celebrities and throwing over-the-top masculine buzzwords around like they’re going out of fashion.

And it works. After all, shaving is a necessary evil for most men, so they’ve little choice but to buy in to the multi-billion dollar industry. Until now, that is. Enter Dollar Shave Club, the company that’s done away with flash, aspirational advertising, and simply promises to provide high-quality razor blades every month – straight-to-your-door – for the low price of just $1 a month.

Started by “a guy tired of overpriced blades and of forgetting/refusing/denying to buy them each month”, Dollar Shave Club is making waves with men everywhere thanks to a clever viral video that has Twitter and Facebook buzzing with noise. With a production value of just $4,500, the video features CEO Mike Dubin outlining his no-nonsense approach to razor-purchasing whilst poking gentle fun at mainstream razor advertising, with a couple of off-the-wall scenes and a nod towards the company’s positive impact on the economy thrown in for good measure. “Are our blades good?” Dubin asks the audience. “No. Our blades are f**cking great.” The ad is humorous, relatable and eminently share-able. Search for @DollarShaveClub on Twitter and you’ll find rafts of retweets, shares, praise and links to the video.

Indeed, over three million people have watched the video in less than a week. As DraftFCBlog tots up:

“If you figure only one-third of us went to the website (a conservative guess, for sure) and only one percent actually ordered the cheapest deal on it, that’s still somewhere around $120,000 in revenue generated from a $4,500 investment – or a 2600% ROI.”

The video succeeds because it’s inherently, truly, viral – people want to share it. Too often PR teams and advertising agencies slap the term ‘viral’ on campaigns and ads only for them to fizzle embarrassingly into the online ether. This one works because the public says it does, and Dollar Shave Club will reap serious rewards for tapping into such highly-coveted Internet approval.