Barberco: the JRL × Lamborghini launch that broke records

The client

Barberco.cz is a Czech online wholesaler and retailer with a clear vision: to bring the world's best men's grooming brands together in one place. It specialises in professional care for barbers, barbershops and gentlemen looking for products you won't find in an ordinary drugstore — from clippers through beard oils to balms from brands like BaByliss PRO, Reuzel and Uppercut Deluxe. One of the key brands in the portfolio is JRL — a global leader in professional barber equipment with cult status across the community.

We run full-service marketing for Barberco — and that's exactly what let us squeeze the full potential out of the announcement of the limited JRL × Lamborghini edition.

The challenge: a limited edition with no stock, in a market full of competitors

For Barberco, getting the JRL × Lamborghini collaboration approved meant enormous potential — but also a fundamental problem: Europe was set to be 3–4 months behind the USA in the queue. The physical product simply wasn't available.

The competitive environment made things harder:

• Other e-shops started listing the product with the distributor's catalogue photos and undercutting prices.
• Barberco risked losing its leading position, with customers buying from competitors.
• The price war was pushing margins down.

Our task was to differentiate Barberco, build hype before the stock even arrived and defend the number-one position — all without a physical product in hand.

A strategy that left nothing to chance

The campaign didn't have a single starting gun — it was a deliberate escalation where every step built on the previous one.

Building hype and launching pre-orders

Before we had a single physical unit, we started building tension. From the supplier's materials we created creatives that teased but deliberately didn't reveal everything. For those who knew about the JRL × Lamborghini launch it was clear what to expect at Barberco. For everyone else the creatives carried clever hints — suggesting, but never showing the whole product.

We backed this tactic with performance campaigns on Meta Ads precisely targeting the barber community. The result: even before pre-orders opened we had a primed audience that knew something big was coming — and that Barberco would be the first place to get it.

Product launch: a physical unit in hand and a competition that collected leads

Thanks to the pre-launch communication and a temporary price-drop strategy, pre-orders were successful from the start. But the real turning point came when, through the Barberco owners' international contacts, we managed to source two physical JRL × Lamborghini units directly from the UK — at that moment the only ones on the entire CZ/SK market.

While the competition was still working with catalogue photos, having the product in hand let us build the whole campaign on authenticity and differentiation. We built it on an emotion: "Be the first in CZ/SK to cut with it." We launched a series of content — detailed photography, unboxing videos and carousel posts with the technical specs. As brand experts we had what the competition didn't: the real product.

One of the two units went into circulation through a competition. It wasn't a classic "like to win" — we tied the competition to collecting email contacts, substantially growing Barberco's database with highly relevant customers.

• 149,437 views of the competition video
• 3,279 interactions
• 679 new email contacts in the database

Influencer marketing and performance campaigns

The second physical unit — and more as the first ordered pieces landed in the client's warehouse — went to selected influencers. They created authentic content which we then reused as creative for performance campaigns on Google Ads and Meta Ads. The best-performing influencer reel reached 39,809 views, 22,299 unique users and 830 interactions.

This step drove real orders with an outstanding return. Google Ads and Meta Ads both hit an identical ROAS of 9.3× — Google Ads generated CZK 3.35M in revenue, Meta Ads CZK 6M, together CZK 9.35M from performance campaigns.

Customer care: transparent communication instead of cancellations

Pre-orders placed 4 months ahead carry a high risk of cancellation. So we introduced two key measures:

• Mandatory prepayment — customers couldn't order cash-on-delivery, which secured cashflow and proved genuine buying intent.
• Monthly updates — every month we informed pre-order customers about the status of the shipment from the factory.

This proactive communication eliminated uncertainty and kept the order cancellation rate at a historic low.

The results: owning the market before the stock arrived

The combination of courage, unique content and precise marketing delivered results that rewrote Barberco.cz's records.

• 60% of all stock sold before it physically arrived
• 9.3× ROAS on both Google Ads and Meta Ads
• CZK 9.35M revenue from performance campaigns
• 679 new relevant email contacts
• +35% year-over-year revenue growth across the whole JRL segment
• Remaining stock sold after arrival at a higher margin — while competitors were cutting margins in the price war
• Barberco confirmed its position as the #1 e-shop for the JRL brand on the CZ/SK market

Key takeaways

This campaign shows that even a product that doesn't physically exist in your warehouse yet can generate record revenue — if you have the right strategy and the courage to execute it.

• Authenticity beats the catalogue. Original content shot with the physical product carries more credibility than anything the competition can use.
• Lead generation combined with product hype works synergistically. A competition delivers more than engagement — it's a tool for turning attention into contacts.
• Transparent customer care eliminates losses. Regular communication with pre-order customers is an investment, not a cost. And stricter order terms (prepayment instead of cash-on-delivery) cut cancellations and raise customer quality.