After Hailey Bieber shared a photo wearing accessories label Heaven Mayhem’s mini gold knot earrings on her Instagram, Pia Mance, the brand’s founder, sprung into action.
The earrings weren’t scheduled to launch for two more days; she moved up the sale date and placed them on the brand’s site that same day. They sold out within 24 hours. At first, it felt like a dream come to life — celebrity attention and a hit, sell-out product. But soon, the popularity became a source of stress.
“My assistant and I would be chasing down the UPS truck so we could start printing up the labels and filling orders,” Mance said. “Every single time it’s selling well, I ordered double, and then it continues to sell out. It was almost like I couldn’t get a hand on the sales.”
Such is the experience of going viral. While it promises many things — attention and visibility, word-of-mouth recommendations, a sales lift and, hopefully, long-term growth, it also comes with its challenges. When a viral product usually sells out — sometimes going through months worth of stock in less than 24 hours — it can leave brands scrambling to meet demand. A standout product can build brand awareness, but there’s also the risk that’s all consumers will know you for. Going from small-scale to international attention overnight can be a difficult transition, one that ultimately can buckle a brand.
Issa London, which made the royal-blue dress the Princess of Wales (then Kate Middleton) wore when announcing her engagement in 2010, for example, shuttered five years later. Problems began mounting when founder Daniella Helayel struggled to finance the production to meet demand for the dress. Entireworld, the basics label that encapsulated pandemic dressing in a 2020 New York Times article, “Sweatpants Forever,” failed to reinvent itself as lockdowns ceased and closed by the end of 2021.
“A brand doesn’t want to be completely pigeonholed into one product,” said Robert Burke, chief executive of retail consultancy Robert Burke Associates. “It’s great to ride on that viral moment, but [you have to] make sure that the brand stands for more than that.”
If brands play their hand correctly, the momentary boost can be used to lay the foundation for a long-lasting business. But that requires not just reacting in the moment, but continuing to use the lessons learned as fuel for the future.
“It’s an opportunity,” Erin Kleinberg, founder of the agency Métier Creative and skincare label Sidia. “Now it’s about playing the puzzle pieces right.”
In the Moment
As any founder will tell you, there’s rarely predicting which product will be at the centre of the chatter, or when it will happen. But when lightning strikes, there are immediate concerns that should be top-of-mind.
“You have so many more eyes on the products, and that’s fun, but it’s also, ‘How does the website look? Do we have enough stock? How’s the pricing?’” said Matilda Djerf, creator and the founder of Djerf Avenue, an apparel and homewares label whose fruit and berry-printed bathrobes caught fire on TikTok last year. “Going viral doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. Everything else still has to align.”
While having a sold-out product comes with a certain cachet, to make sales, you need stock. And predicting viral demand can be tricky, as it’s changing from minute to minute. Mance, as well as Djerf, used pre-orders as a tool to determine reorder sizes. Djerf also said they’ve made manufacturing adjustments — working with a stock fabric that their factories have on hand, and spacing out when an order is received to ensure there’s always product in their warehouse — in order to keep product continuously in stock.
Plus, when a bunch of eyeballs are on your brand, it’s an opportune time to invest in new marketing channels, launch a new campaign or respond to press attention. Brands that notice a trend taking off and respond accordingly can extend momentum.
For instance, after seeing interest in its Cool Jean — a pair of wide-legged denim that features a toggle at the waist — spike last year, downtown New York-based denim brand Still Here put it at the centre of its holiday campaign and planned a restock accordingly; it did even better than the initial swell of interest indicated.
“That was when it was extremely clear to us that the world was going bananas for it,” said Still Here founder Sonia Mosseri. “That was the moment.”
After the Dust Settles
To retain new customers and translate that swell of attention into longevity, brands should consider what made the product a success in the first place, and expand upon it.
When Hill House Home’s nap dress went viral in 2020, for example, it made five different styles that fell under that categorisation. Since then, it’s created over 50 nap dress styles in 480 different prints or colours. To iterate on the original styles, founder Nell Diamond said the brand looked to the consumer data to lead the conversation.
“It became clear over the next six months that smocking is the ‘thing’ about nap dresses, but there’s more than that people like about the brand,” said Diamond. “It required us to do a lot of testing with customers.”
Those new styles have kept customers coming back: The top 10 percent of the brand’s customers own 13 of their dresses. It also introduced new products, like non-nap dresses without its signature smocking, jackets and swimwear. Djerf Avenue, similarly, put its beloved berry print on a variety of different items, including pajamas and bedding — all in the same lounge family as the original robe — while Heaven Mayhem took the bold, oversized silhouette of the earrings and applied it to new accessories, like brooches.
After a viral moment, brands — particularly smaller labels — also need to take stock of their wider customer base, which may now include new geographies and demographics that could have different desires than their original, core customer. Kleinberg said that brands should try to meet those new customers where they are, whether it’s with events or pop-ups in their cities, to develop that relationship and determine what they want from the brand.
Still, brands shouldn’t forget that initial customer — oftentimes in fashion, a coastal, in-the-know “cool girl” type — because they’ll continue to encourage customers to embrace new launches.
“The wider customer base is obviously looking to these New York influencers setting the trends,” said Mance. With new categories, like brooches, she’s seen that “the cool girl loves it, buys it and believes in it straight away, whereas it takes longer for a widespread mainstream audience to catch onto it.”
Some things, however, don’t change. Diamond said she’s found that most customers prioritise feeling connected to the brand. Finding new ways to engage customers can help with that. On Djerf Avenue’s members-only platform, Angels Avenue, it shares exclusive imagery with users who can then create “Styleboards” to share inspiration images. Diamond hosts a livestream ahead of every major product drop called a “Nap Room.” She also has a broadcast channel on Instagram where she shares sneak peeks of upcoming campaigns or launches.
To translate virality into lasting success, brands need to remember there may be a moment where their hottest product isn’t at the top of customer wish lists — and get them invested in the rest of their assortment. At the start of this year, still riding the high of its holiday campaign, Still Here launched a new marketing effort to introduce consumers to its Everyday Jean, a more standard straight-leg style.
“It’s been a focus for us to wrangle the conversation with the Cool Jean, be there for it, support it, extend it, see the evolution and simultaneously be investing our efforts into everyday dressing and a little bit less trendy products,” said Mosseri.
