Driving fast fame: How Shark is rivalling Dyson’s empire

If you engage with social media at all then you would have heard about Shark. Known primarily for its Airwrap dupe the FlexStyle, the Ninja Creami, and its various vacuum cleaners, Shark has seen triple digit revenue growth year on year. Thanks, in part to an aggressive social-first marketing strategy that it calls “driving fast fame”.

It seems like it is impossible to log into Instagram or TikTok without seeing someone touting a Shark product, and that is entirely by design. Despite its relatively small 42,000 person following, at the time of writing the Shark FlexStyle alone has been the subject of 98.4 million posts on TikTok. Of course Dyson has its own social media fame. The Dyson Airwrap has over 387 million TikTok videos dedicated to it, but the product category has been around since 2018. Whereas the Shark FlexStyle and its 90 million videos are only two years old. For comparison, its current global search volume on Google is only 373,000. While that number isn’t anything to scoff at, it shows a huge disparity of how people are engaging with Shark products.

Anyone who has battled with Google knows that search traffic is a long game, while social media virality is powerful but fleeting. Shark has seemingly harnessed that power through the strength of comparison. #Dysonvsshark has amassed more than 22.4 million views on TikTok, with most of these videos addressing whether the Dyson Airwrap or the Shark FlexStyle is better. Countless consumers turned advocates talk about the price difference between the two, the technical differences, and the practical performance and hold of each device. The overarching consensus? The FlexStyle is the better choice.

Across the social media ecosystem, thousands of Airwrap users complained that the device didn’t work for their hair. This spurred searches for “airwrap dupes” (11.2k google searches per month) - a consumer need had arose. As self-proclaimed disruptors, Shark told the IFA audience that “when needs are unmet, we meet them” and as a result of these comparison videos, the FlexStyle sold one unit, every minute of 2023 in the US alone.

Dyson has itself acknowledged the issues with the Airwrap by releasing the new Airwrap i.d. with a companion app to train users how to use their styler to achieve better curls. It is possible that Dyson would have released this product anyway, but the timing is interesting none-the-less.

Of course it isn’t all user-generated content. Shark pulls a range of high profile celebrities in as brand advocates. David Beckham has represented Ninja products, and Courtney Cox will soon be the face of Shark vacuum cleaners in the lead up to the holiday season. Still, these community led viral sensations have catapulted Shark’s market share across a range of product categories. In fact, out of all its 34 product categories, Shark sits as number one or number two in every single one.

While Shark has a way to go before dethroning Dyson’s stronghold, if its trajectory continues the vacuum giant may relinquish the crown sooner than anticipated.