The hilarious 'Damn Daniel' meme blew up sales for the company that makes white Vans
In case you missed it, the "damn, Daniel" meme blew up in February. It's a video of one friend named Josh Holz calling out his teen friend Daniel Lara over and over for wearing Vans. Mostly white Vans.
"Dammmmnnnnn, Daniel, back at it again with the white Vans!" the tagline goes.
Daniel and Josh gained a ton of Twitter followers, went on Ellen, made a website, and did all the other things viral sensations get up to soon after.
Sales of white Vans on Amazon because of Daniel blew up in the following weeks. And that was the first sign we got that VF Corp, the apparel company that owns the Vans brand, was cashing in.
The company reported first-quarter earnings on Friday, and beat expectations for profits and sales. It said direct-to-consumer sales spiked 20%, while online sales jumped 30%.
Here's president and COO Steven Rendle:
Of course, how could we not mention Daniel, as in 'Damn Daniel', which, as you can imagine, did have a strong impact on the sales of White Vans, which saw 100% sell-through in both retail direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels.
The national media attention the brand received is a wild demonstration of how creative expression, youth culture and loyalty can conspire to cause a phenomenon. Well done, Daniel, well done.
Bloomberg notes that Vans jumped on the meme - like a #brand would - and redirected its homepage to a listing for white Vans.
All this happened at a tough time for apparel retailers, who are facing headwinds from changing consumer tastes and online shopping.
Here's the original viral video: