👋, I’m Kimberly. I’ve been creating obsession-worthy brands for the past fifteen years. And now, I’m giving away my secrets every week in this newsletter.
Every morning, I take a 15-minute walk before I sit down at my desk for the day and listen to my favorite podcast, The Best One Yet (also known as TBOY).
During that time, hosts Nick & Jack entertainingly cover three important business stories in 15 minutes, with fresh takes and interesting breakdowns
A few weeks ago, TBOY covered a topic near and dear to the heart of anyone who has worked with beauty brands as long as I have » dupe products.
Dupes are exactly what they sound like: duplicates of existing products already on the market. They’re similar to knockoffs, but not necessarily lower quality — just lower priced versions.
Specifically, the story that got TBOY’s attention was the new Daily Sunscreen suddenly selling out at Trader Joe’s, which purported to be an exact match of Supergoop’s Unscreen Sunscreen.
Like any great dupe, the product seemed to be the same to consumers, who were all over TikTok testing it and weighing in with their opinions.
And also like any great dupe, there was a tremendous difference in price point, with the TJ version selling for $8.99 and the Unseen going for $36.
Then last week on TBOY, Nick and Jack talked about another beauty brand, e.l.f. Cosmetics — whose stock price is now up 19% at an all-time high during a time when looking at your stock portfolio is a sure bet to send shivers down your spine (I’ve personally been avoiding it.)
Nick and Jack attributed some of this growth to e.l.f. sticking to its guns on its flagship $3 lipstick (which, similar to those Cosco hot dogs, they’ll never raise the price of). They call this the “sacred cow that protects the profit puppy.”
And while protecting the special relationship customers have with the $3 lipstick is definitely key — a second factor is influencing e.l.f.’s continued growth right now…
The brand’s historical par excellence at making amazing dupes.
It makes perfect sense:
As prices rise all around, the need to find a lower-priced match for your favorite products sounds more and more appealing.
The demand for dupes rises.
And e.l.f. Cosmetics is one of the reigning queens of the beauty dupe world, with many, many successful formulas under its belt that rival the prestige brands.
This June, e.l.f. worked up beauty editors and TikTokers alike in another “I gotta-try-it-and-post-about-it!” dupe-driven frenzy — with everyone saying its Halo Glow Liquid Filter is an exact dupe (and maybe an even better product) than the Charlotte Tillsbury cult classic Flawless Filter.
And the price difference? $14 vs $44.
All this talk of dupes got me thinking about what any brand can learn from the making and marketing of dupe products — whether they’re setting out to make a copy or not.
And I came up with six. So, here they are.
1. Let your customers do the talking.
I’ve said it before in the newsletter and I’ll say it again and again and again: Your customers are your biggest asset.
You can ask them questions!
You can mine their reviews and customer service reports for insights!
And most of all — you can get them to do your advertising for you, for waaay cheaper than a Facebook ad you’re paying a bazillion dollars for with now-questionable targeting capabilities.
The best part of the greatest dupes of all time is that it is not them calling themselves dupes… it’s their customers.
The people you know and trust are making videos, writing reviews, and telling you about the amazing dupe products they found at happy hour over the latest adaptogenic mocktails launched by a B-list celebrity.
The Lesson Here
Whether you’re making a dupe or inventing an original, the more you let your customers speak for you… the more authentic and engaging your marketing has the power to be.
2. Everybody loves a secret.
We love hearing them. We love knowing them. And we love telling them. Especially if there are no potential repercussions.
That makes the existence of a dupe the very best kind of secret.
It makes you feel special and excited for knowing about it.
You get to try and test it and judge it for yourself, putting you in a position of power.
And you’re excited to pass along the story, because sharing the insight means you get to play the part of the knowledgable one.
The Lesson Here
Your brand doesn’t have to be a dupe of something to have a secret. Think about how can you give your customers some juicy knowledge to share.
3. Take care in your product development.
No matter how great your brand or marketing it, it won’t make up for a crappy product. People won’t keep buying something or coming bad if it’s bad.
The best dupes take a long time to craft. Making a near-perfect replica of someone’s formula or design isn’t easy, especially if you’re trying to do it for less money.
The dupes that people love have been lovely crafted and thoroughly tested by the copycats creating them.
The Lesson Here
Put the same energy into your originals that a forger would put into a Renaissance painting.
4. Being the first doesn't always mean being the best.
People are always rushing to be first to market with their ideas. But rushing usually means cutting some kind of corner or compromising in some way.
A great dupe is proudly not the first of its kind, but it has ambitions to be the best of its kind — especially for the price.
And if you’ll believe the army of TikTockers obsessed with the e.l.f. product, it’s totally possible to outdo the original.
The Lesson Here
Whatever you’re making or bringing to market, it’s usually ok if someone beats you out of the starting gate. You can lap them down the road.
5. It’s ok to be blatant sometimes.
Cruising down the aisles of stores like Walgreens and CVS, you’ll see plenty of versions of what they call “generics” — the equivalent of dupes for medications.
And right on those labels, they call out the name of the brand and type of drug it’s a match for:
“Compare to Tylenol Extra Strength!
Compare to Nyquil!
Compare to Benadryl!” (
I added the exclamation points, but you get the idea.
The Lesson Here
This is a great lesson for anyone enamored by clever and conceptual copy.
There’s a time and place for clever and conceptual. But sometimes, you also need to hit customers over the head with something or put it in black and white.
A lot of people don’t have time for cryptic these days. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
6. Branding plays a huge role in your price point.
When I worked for Sephora corporate, it was an open secret that many of the beautiful products on the shelf were made in the same factories, with the same ingredients — but sold for wildly different price points depending on the branding.
For example, the #1 selling eyeliner at the time was from Urban Decay — a cool brand with fancy packaging.
The Sephora Collection liner was the same liner, made in the same factory, but with minimal branding and packaging. And it sold for $6.
The Lesson Here
There’s no reason other than branding that many products should be so outrageously priced.
It’s all the things that surround the product and how it makes you feel that makes us willing to spend that much.
In conclusion….you don’t need to be the one making the dupe to take away a thing (or 6).
You can safely step back from that Malivor pit of murky moral ground.
Because the best of the best reproduction artists let the world peek at their work, too.
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About Me
I help early-stage founders create the kind of brands that get customers so obsessed, they’ll do your advertising for you.
Based on my experience founding my own consumer brand, I developed The Branding Sprint—a uniquely collaborative, streamlined, and agile approach to brand creation.
Click here to learn more about The Branding Sprint, or schedule a call with me.