Dollskill- A Booming Brand
Dolls Kill is an e-commerce clothing website targeted for young women and teens and have successfully branded themselves through social media. The company was founded in 2011 by Shoddy Lynn and Bobby Farahi, a couple from San Francisco. Their Instagram in April had around 100,000 followers but in just three months they were able to expand their social presence through their unique modeling of clothes and four months later they were up to 230,000. The most major set back Dolls Kill was their hacking of their Instagram page which resulted in their name being changed to “DollsKKK” and had several inappropriate photos sent out like human feces and a man’s genitals. Since Dolls Kill was based upon picture sharing medium, a hack on their company could easily hurt their image, which it did. Hundreds of followers were lost and it was hard to regain their following. Dolls Kill managed to rebrand themselves and bounce back from this set back by building relationships with it’s following by inspiring them. The budget for their marketing was limited but they were able to receive “[…] 3.5 million in sales in 2012 and $7.5 million the next year” (Del Ray 26). Their sales ended up skyrocketing due to this mass increase in exposure. According to George B. Sproles, he investigated the trends of fashion consumption and interests of consumers. He studied the idea of fashion behavior and the unique signs of common interests that span between people globally. To recap his point, he was essentially discussing how people tend to follow this sort of aesthetic approach which in turn gives this psychological satisfaction socially(Sproles). Although the trends change drastically overtime, consumers tend to share the same behavior across many decades because they all want some source of validation by their appearance. Dollskill allows a sense of self expression that is unlike any other clothing brand. It brings the dark and more unique style to life and because more and more people start to follow that “aesthetic” nowadays, it has gained more exposure hence more profit to the brand. The company was able to quickly rebound after the incident of the hacking and their following had skyrocketed within months. Going from 100,000 followers to about 230,000 in just three months(Delray). These statistics are only from the beginning of their growth, but clearly demonstrate the rate at which the exposure grew. Dollskill only started out with about 1 million dollars in funding, but used that amount so efficiently that their brand started booming and more people began to buy their products(Delray). The company Dollskill just goes to show how a simple small brand, even through many trials and errors, was still able to prosper through critical thinking and decision making and gaining the most beneficial exposure.
Works Cited:
George B. Sproles (1974) ,”Fashion Theory: a Conceptual Framework”, in NA — Advances in Consumer Research Volume 01, eds. Scott Ward and Peter Wright, Ann Abor, MI : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 463–472.
Rey, Jason Del. “Flesh, Drugs and Instagram: How Dolls Kill Built a Breakout Online Fashion Brand.” Vox, Vox, 11 Aug. 2014, https://www.vox.com/2014/8/11/11629724/flesh-drugs-and-instagram-how-dolls-kill-built-a-breakout-online.
