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SimpliSafe Fine-tuning Its Brand Proposition In Home-security Category

SimpliSafe, which sells DIY home security directly to consumers, is shooting four new holiday spots as we speak with Robert Larson, an ex-burglar who is now a family man. He's not likely to be recognized on the street as he wears a mask, and not the COVID kind either.

Don LeBlanc, chief commercial officer for the brand, spoke at MediaPost's Brand Insider Summit D2C on Tuesday via Zoom. He shared a lot of information about the company, which he joined just a few months ago when the video ad he showed was shot. (You can tell because at the end, Larson is seen safeguarding his toilet paper, as shown here.)

LeBlanc told us about the company's three buckets to growth: deliver subscriber growth, improve its competitive position and improve operational effectiveness. SimpliSafe's unaided brand awareness, he said, is up 100% year over year.

Early on, the D2C brand focused, as most startups do, on each quarter but now it's looking ahead three to five years, although who knows what will happen with COVID. For example, in the technology space, it had been using outdated solutions, which it is investing in an ecommerce platform and an analytics structure in order to improve.

Yet, COVID is providing some "tail wind," he said, as people don't want the category behemoths like ADT to be coming into their homes to install home security systems. 

Forecasting is a key challenge at SimpliSafe and one that it is trying to get better at. "Sales cures all ills except when you don't have product in the warehouse to ship out," LeBlanc said. "We need to beef up our forecasting approach or risk disappointing customers."

In the end, he said, the brand has to show why the DIY experience is better. "It has to be a value proposition conversation as much as it is a brand conversation," he said.

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