The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The risk of having a founder as the face of a company
Commercials for Dollar Shave Club, the subscription toiletries company, are known for two things. There’s that zany, slightly frat-boy sense of humor — the latest ad features a few dozen people shaving, tweezing, clipping, trimming, waxing, bathing, powdering, spritzing, gelling, styling and moisturizing to the song “I’ve Gotta Be Me” as crooned by Steve Lawrence.
And then there is the reliable presence of the company’s founder, Michael Dubin.
Dubin became familiar to viewers thanks to a 2012 YouTube video in which he extolled the quality and price of his razor blades with the help of a toddler, someone in a bear suit, a wildly swung tennis racket — and a choice profanity. The ad went viral, and Dollar Shave Club racked up 12,000 orders within 48 hours.
“I knew we needed to cut through the clutter, and I decided who best to tell the company’s story than me,” said Dubin, who makes a cameo in the latest commercial. “The intent wasn’t that I’d become a spokesmanlike figure. I just wanted to make a fun advertisement for the business that communicated simply and memorably what we were all about.”
Founders and other top executives have long been enlisted, to very good effect, to star in commercials for their companies. Think Dave Thomas of Wendy’s, James Dyson and his vacuum cleaner business and Frank Perdue, the tough guy who knew just how to make a tender chicken.
Even so, using the head of the company as the face of the company can be a fraught strategy.
“The person may be fine in front of the camera but may blow it behind the camera,” said Allen Adamson, a partner at the marketing firm Metaforce. “If there’s an issue with the founder and he or she is a key part of the company’s ads, the brand damage will be far more severe.”
Consider John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John’s, who stepped down as the pizza chain’s chairman last month after using a racial slur on a conference call. Schnatter’s image had become inseparable from the brand — he appeared in numerous commercials, often reciting the chain’s slogan: “Better pizza. Better ingredients. Papa John’s.”
It was not the first time Schnatter had created problems for the company. In November, he blamed slumping sales on the way the National Football League dealt with players who knelt during the national anthem to protest racism and police brutality. Those comments were praised by white supremacists; the NFL later ended its nearly eightyear sponsorship deal with Papa John’s.
Schnatter notwithstanding, there is a considerable upside in bringing the founder to the fore.
“Founders are revered more than ever, entrepreneur fever has increased, and the founder has such a compelling story,” said Kevin Lane Keller, the E.B. Osborn professor of marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. “This is their passion, the passion fuels the company, and talking about it may be a way to differentiate themselves.
“James Dyson is a good example,” Keller continued. “Clearly, he’s obsessed, and he comes across in the ads as having expertise.”
And when you and your company have the same name, he added, “it’s awfully hard not to be part of the advertising equation.”
For the Perdues, it has become a family tradition. In September, Ryan Perdue, general manager of pet products for Perdue, and Chris Perdue, a director in the agribusiness division, were introduced in a series of commercials that also introduced a new product, Perdue Harvestland organic chicken. Also on hand: their father, Jim Perdue, the chief executive, who had appeared in commercials with his father, Frank. (Decades ago, even the company’s patriarch, Arthur Perdue, Frank’s father, starred in an ad.)
“Everything revolves around trust, and that’s even more important today because the millennial generation is very skeptical,” Jim Perdue said. “If you have the owner of the company in an ad saying, ‘Look, we’re transparent — we’re raising chickens without antibiotics,’ it’s a way of engendering trust.”
Bob Kaufman has been starring in commercials for his company, Bob’s Discount Furniture, since the 1990s, generally clad in jeans and a golf shirt. He has also appeared in some of those ads as a Claymation figure, a subtle nod to the fact that Kaufman will not be around forever.
“As a founder, there’s a level of honesty you bring that a talking head cannot,” Kaufman said. “When consumers hear from the decision-maker, someone who has the power to do what he says he’s doing, there’s a level of believability.”
But no matter how credible and authentic their message, company leaders (and their descendants) are pitching their products in an era of heightened visibility thanks to social media.
“Chris and Ryan Perdue get the gravity of the situation,” said Eric Christianson, Perdue’s chief marketing officer. “We told them: ‘People are watching. This is a role you’ve taken voluntarily that’s important for the success of the company and for the brand.’”
Of course, some leaders want their company’s image to extend beyond their personality, and long beyond their life.
That’s partly why Dubin of Dollar Shave Club has chosen not to appear in every one of his company’s ads, though he has appeared in a dozen to date. (The company was sold to Unilever in 2016 for a reported $1 billion; Dubin has stayed on as chief executive.)
“There is some brand recognition that comes with putting me in the ads,” he said. “But at the same time it’s important to create a brand that exists outside the founder’s identity.
“I want DSC to be a 100-year-old brand that will long outlive my usefulness as a spokesman.”