Dollar Shave Club Used AI for the Gags, Not the Shave: A Case Study in Choosing Where AI Belongs
Dollar Shave Club’s new ‘Perfectly Good Is Perfect’ campaign used real people on camera and AI for quick visual gags. Here’s what its selective approach teaches brands about AI production.
On October 20, Dollar Shave Club launched “Perfectly Good Is Perfect,” a new omnichannel campaign that pokes fun at today’s obsession with self-optimisation. It is also one of the clearest recent examples of a brand using AI with precision rather than spectacle. The 30-second hero film opens with a spokesperson cycling through familiar wellness clichés: an ice bath, a Shake Weight, a green smoothie and an infrared face mask. The spokesperson then walks through a bathroom set to show a razor line-up built around a simple message: use the right number of blades for you. The campaign runs across connected TV, YouTube, Meta and TikTok, with social activations through October, including a “Red-ish Carpet” stunt that gave everyday people celebrity-style interviews in cities like Cincinnati and Knoxville.
What makes it a useful case study is how AI was used. The campaign was shot with real people in front of and behind the camera. AI handled quick visual gags, such as the spokesperson holding up six fingers while presenting the six-blade razor. Chief Brand and Innovation Officer Laura Higgins wrote the brief and developed the concepts with comic talent, and AI helped the team and agency partner Humanaut cut production to about two and a half months. Just as telling is where the brand chose not to use AI. Dollar Shave Club is reluctant to generate shaving footage because the technology still cannot get it right visually. Higgins summed up the approach plainly: “We’ve had to become more choiceful around where we’re using [AI].” The brand also keeps a strict brand book and builds a channel-by-channel toolkit for every campaign.
Three lessons stand out for any brand. First, the idea comes before the tool; AI did not write this campaign, people did. Second, use AI where it adds something a camera cannot, like a surreal gag, and keep real footage where accuracy and trust matter most, especially product demonstrations, where viewers notice every flaw. Third, guardrails make speed safe. Templates and toolkits let a team move fast without drifting off-brand. This is exactly how we work at The Quick Craft. We start with the story, decide shot by shot where AI genuinely helps, and keep human creative direction on every frame. The result is work that is produced faster and feels fresher, without ever feeling fake.
