• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, November 1, 2013

If you watched even one inning of the World Series, you probably noticed that all of the Red Sox players had beards, most of which were unkempt. And considering the beards brought Boston a victory — because it was clearly all the beards, right? — there has been genuine buzz about the art of the beard.

Even a company that relies on people shaving, Gillette, says it has been okay with the beard craze, even though it has meant many of Boston's most faithful fans have joined its players in cutting loose.

I think a company like Gillette should be happy to see a team like the Red Sox glorify beards, if only for a short period of time, because it puts the spotlight on the company's domain (facial hair) in a completely natural way. It makes for real-time marketing opportunities that aren't forced.

I mean, every brand out there was not relevant when the Royal Baby was born, but Gillette is when Boston isn't shaving.

Kontera, a company with a content marketing platform that often looks at how much a certain topic is "consumed" (the number of times a term has been seen online, across mobile, and within social channels) in a specific period of time. Unsurprisingly, all things beard have been skyrocketing in recent weeks.

Apparently, the Dollar Shave Club has noticed this, as the company today challenged Red Sox players to braid/shave their beards for charity. According to Yardbarker.com, the Dollar Shave Club is using the ultimate real-time marketing platform — Twitter — to run this deal. "All they require is photo proof tweeted to @dollarshaveclub," Yardbarker wrote.

While people consumed information about "baseball" six times more than content about beards during the World Series, beard-related consumption was increasing faster. During the World Series, beard content consumption increased 52%, compared to baseball content's 12%, per Kontera.

#GetBeard was actually a trend on Twitter, and it's only fitting that the Red Sox were propelled to victory by their beards just days before facial hair's favorite month, November.

At least until the World Series beard hype and No Shave November's craze dies down a little, the "B" will stand for beard for real-time marketers.

"Beard" photo from Shutterstock.