New TikTok challenge: Try to scroll the app for 10 minutes before a creator attempts to stop finger traffic by proclaiming that they’ve found “the PERFECT [insert product here] dupe!”
There are more than 320,000 videos under #dupe on TikTok (plus all the niche and brand-specific tags, like #makeupdupe or #skimsdupe). And while the dupe-culture trend started taking off in the last few years, it’s been around far longer, previously under the less-chic “knockoff” moniker.
Amid broader economic volatility and tariff-related price increases, though, the dupe is finding more resonance, and brands like eyewear retailer Eyebuydirect and clothing and homeware company Italic have leaned into dupe culture, emphasizing the cost-effectiveness and can’t-spot-the-difference qualities of their products. But shaping messaging around being a good dupe (glamorous, but responsible!) while not coming off as cheap (the horror!) is a delicate balance to strike.
“Today’s consumers, they are smart, they want quality service, but they never want to break their bank account,” Sunny Jiang, CEO of Eyebuydirect, told Marketing Brew. “Dupe culture plays a critical role to shape people’s approach when they interact with online [stores].”
Quality matters
For Eyebuydirect, its two priorities are affordability and accessibility, Jiang said. Its products, mostly prescription and nonprescription glasses and sunglasses, start at $6 a pair, and are sold direct-to-consumer to a mainly US audience. With an almost entirely online business model and about 30% of its customers’ first brand touchpoint being on social media, Jiang said appealing to internet-savvy customers is crucial.
“It’s a key channel for us to understand and know the market trends, as well as the audience’s preferences,” Jiang said.
Much of the brand’s messaging online is crafted around emphasizing its quality, craftsmanship, and materials. They’re key details that dupe shoppers look for as they compare the perceived quality of a less expensive brand to pricier alternatives, she said. In the case of Eyebuydirect, customers sometimes compare its products to brands like Carrera or to similar DTC eyewear brands Warby Parker and Vehla.
Jiang said the company’s almost entirely in-house design and engineering processes are an asset when interacting with trends. “This kind of model allows us to be responsive and cautious about people’s attention regarding the balance between quality, fashion, and price,” she said.
Italic, another DTC brand that calls itself a purveyor of “modern luxury,” similarly emphasizes its quality and materials, according to Head of Growth Julia Paulescu-Kalé; the brand claims that it sources products from the same manufacturers as Prada, Givenchy, Burberry, and other luxury fashion brands, but sells them at lower prices.
While this emphasis plays into dupe culture, it’s not the only trend that the brand is leaning into. When deinfluencing, thrifting, and quiet luxury took the virtual spotlight early last year, Italic similarly underscored its products’ technical qualities. These days, the message is still about its materials, but Paulescu-Kalé said the tone has shifted.
“Right now, especially, we’re in a recessionary time period, and a lot of people don’t want to say that, but consumer sentiment is showing that spending has gone down significantly,” Paulescu-Kalé told us. “So the way that we approach it is continued focus on longevity.”
Pretty penny
Dupe culture’s prevalence began long before President Trump’s second term, but it’s become more pertinent as his trade war and economic policies have tanked consumer sentiment. To meet the moment, Italic is using social media to communicate long-term cost savings.
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“We're trying to also educate customers on cost per use,” Paulescu-Kalé said. “Like, yes, this towel set costs $94 right now. But you’re going to have this towel set for five years, whereas those towels that you’re going to keep buying and buying are going to actually add up to way more.”
In behind-the-scenes videos on TikTok, an Italic representative can explain why cashmere costs so much, or a creator might tout the health benefits of a weighted blanket. Italic also keeps up with customers as long as a year after they make a purchase via email to offer tips on care and ask how the product is holding up. Paulescu-Kalé said it’s part of building Italic “into an authority around quality.”
Consumer anxiety about prices have also fueled Italic’s push into cost-per-use messaging, and Paulescu-Kalé said that when it’s possible, the brand is seeking to lower costs and “trying our hardest” to not pass tariff-related costs onto consumers.
“It’s the right and the fair thing to do, and what we’re seeing the customer demand,” she said.
Dirty dupe
Leaning into dupe culture has its benefits, but not every brand outwardly embraces the dupe label. Italic, for one, doesn’t use the word “dupe” in its marketing, and Paulescu-Kalé said dupe culture is just one of several trends that can be incorporated into the brand’s overall aesthetic.
Makeup brands Esteé Lauder and Milani Cosmetics similarly don’t often label their products as dupes of others in their typical marketing, execs told us. That doesn’t mean they can’t engage with the trend in other ways. Esteé Lauder recently designed an ad campaign around one of its flagship products, Advanced Night Repair Serum, being a dupe for beauty sleep.
“We thought that we, as industry leaders, could turn the conversation on its head and really lean into the idea of really duping the undupeable,” Cyndi Pierre, AVP and executive director of makeup and fragrance category marketing at Estée Lauder North America, told us. “So let’s dupe beauty sleep instead, because sleep is such a luxury.”
The campaign marked a departure for the luxury brand with a lighter tone and engaging with an internet-based trend that is part of Esteé Lauder’s bigger foray into cultural conversations.
“We are a brand that’s focused on eliciting a positive emotion,” Pierre said. “For the purposes of this product, and for the conversation itself, wit blended itself really well.”
At Milani, the marketing team does not use the word “dupe,” CMO Jeremy Lowenstein said, but if consumers want to call certain Milani products dupes, it only proves to him that the brand’s approach is working.
“If people are comparing them, for me, that’s great, because it actually shows that we’re on trend by giving you the affordable version of something that is as good as, if not better than, its prestige counterpart,” Lowenstein said.
For other brands, though, saying “dupe” directly is part of the fun—like at Eyebuydirect, where the social team playfully spurned the high cost of glasses at the optician’s office in favor of more affordable dupes online in one Instagram post. Rather than spend big bucks at the eye doctor, why wouldn’t you just try them on and buy the dupe online?