By now we've all heard of “The Dress” aka #TheDress. If you haven't then you either don't surf the internet very often or you are immune to viral marketing. Either way, #TheDress is a seriously hot topic, and what's most interesting about it (aside from the fact that we all see different colors) is that this viral sensation worked wonders for its retailer.
We learned about dresses, we learned about colors, we learned about ourselves. Yes, that's right, #TheDress, which has proved powerful and almighty on the interwebs has left a mark on society that will be forever called back in future shows like I Love the 2010s. Thus the company behind the dress, Roman Originals, has reportedly raked in a ton of money. According to LinkedIn, the now-infamous dress, which sells on the company's site for £50 or $77.26, has caused a mad surge in business. Since the controversial garb made viral rounds across the internet about a week ago, the company has seen a 347% increase in overall sales as well as a 2,000% increase in overall traffic on their website. While we couldn't find overall gross numbers resulting from the stylish attire's viral push the fact that one of “the dresses” sold for a whopping $2,900 on eBay tells you just how crazy this situation has gotten.
The increase in sales is likely due to social media sites like Tumblr, which claims The Dress has pulled in about 73 million page views, peaking at around 140,000 page views per minute. Not only that, it became the #1 trending topic on Twitter, where celebs like Justin Bieber, Rashida Jones and husband to Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard weighed in on the color, and it received over 750 shares on Facebook. While many of us likely just looked at the dress, it's clear from the increase in sales that a number of folks, who got a bit caught up in the euphoria, placed orders so they could see the colorblind-inducing fabric before their very eyes.
One can't help but assume Romans Originals also got a nice little boost after Ellen DeGeneres overnighted herself one of the dresses and subsequently displayed it on her show last Tuesday. Whether or not it had a hand in the increased numbers (it likely did), it put a rest to the color debate, definitively proving to the wondering world that the dress was indeed blue and black.
Don't get upset if you were one of the viewers who didn't see blue and black. Lucky for you, the company will has decided to roll out a limited run of #TheDress in, yes you guessed correct, white and gold.
