How traditional CPG companies adopt a challenger brand mindset

Sonja Leskinen

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) and start-up brands have been eating away at the margins of long-stablished legacy brands for years – no industry sector is safe from the onslaught, which is just beginning.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) and startup brands have been eating away at the margins of long-established legacy brands for years. From belts to booze to Keto snacks, no industry sector is safe from the onslaught, which is just beginning.

Perhaps the brand that really made marketers take notice of this trend was Dollar Shave Club. Launched in 2011, it quickly captured seven percent of the U.S. shaving market and 30 percent of U.S. shaving e-commerce sales by 2016, according to CB Insights.

Dollar Shave Club, a startup subscription razor company, went head-to-head against CPG powerhouse Procter & Gamble (P&G, owner...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands