The hashtag #dupe has racked up six billion views on TikTok, indicating strong consumer interest in these affordable yet controversial alternatives. Dupes, short for "duplicates," are products that are modeled after or a direct imitation of luxury items. Consumer perceptions of beauty product dupes have changed significantly in recent years. Once stigmatized, these alternatives are now widely accepted and praised on social media, especially TikTok.

For dupe beauty brand MCoBeauty, this is something worth celebrating. The brand established National Dupe Day, an annual event dedicated to celebrating its affordable alternatives, on April 4, or 4/4. To celebrate, MCoBeauty priced every product at $4.44 for a single day. The inaugural National Dupe Day resulted in MCoBeauty's highest sales day to date, experiencing a 10,000% surge in sales and a 20% conversion rate—well above the industry average of 2%-3%.

National Dupe Day was inspired by the idea of creating MCoBeauty’s own version of Amazon Prime Day, according to Chief Marketing Officer Meridith Rojas. Creating and registering a national holiday costs anywhere from $500 up to $25,000, but the real value of owning a holiday comes from its marketing.

“We didn't want to create a holiday for the vanity of owning a national holiday,” Rojas told BeautyMatter. “We wanted to create a holiday that really means something to our community and delivers value.”

MCoBeauty did not do any promotion leading up to the national holiday, which happened to coincide with MCoBeauty’s “It’s not a dupe, it’s a dupè” campaign, a tongue-in-cheek marketing initiative that highlighted the “superior quality” of MCoBeauty's dupes. On April 3, influencers, including Bethenny Frankel and Nina Poole, posted videos as part of MCoBeauty’s “It’s not a dupe, it’s a dupè” campaign that hinted at a “big announcement” coming soon. The following day, 

MCoBeauty announced that it was National Dupe Day, and to celebrate the occasion, everything on the brand’s website would be $4.44 for one day only.

"The sale was unexpected, which gave it more of a ‘drop culture’ feel—consumers felt like they had to grab it while it was hot, because it wasn’t going to last long," said Rojas. "There was a huge wave of organic buzz, with people from our community posting videos urging others to check out the sale before it disappeared.”

Building on the intense consumer enthusiasm for budget-friendly alternatives, MCoBeauty's campaign strategically presented its products as highly desirable and affordable dupes, and the one-day sale created an incentive to buy. Instead of building buzz, MCoBeauty dropped a “value bomb” that could be felt across TikTok. The brand’s “Easter egg” approach to marketing is a deliberate decision that goes against the grain of over-the-top promotional tactics often seen in beauty sales.

“For us, the goal was to create something special, where those in the know would appreciate it, rather than explicitly detailing everything beforehand and warning customers to set their alarms for the sale, which leaves nothing for the community to uncover themselves,” said Rojas.

MCoBeauty's National Dupe Day coincided with Sephora's Semi-Annual Sale, an overlap the brand states was unintentional. The urgency of MCoBeauty’s sale significantly increased its visibility on TikTok, an outcome that Rojas noted was also unexpected.

MCoBeauty expected a strong uplift in brand awareness from the campaign, but the results significantly exceeded expectations. Greg Barker, MCoBeauty's Executive Vice President of Americas, said the brand experienced an extraordinary 10,000% surge in sales compared to their typical daily figures, with tens of thousands of customer orders placed on a single day.

“What was more encouraging was how broad the engagement was with the product range,” Barker told BeautyMatter. “We had between 150 and 200 products online for that sale, and every single one was shopped very heavily. We genuinely had a full portfolio engagement from our customer base, which we were really pleased to see.”

Rojas added, “Because our prices are so good, people tend to buy multiple things at once, and that's our differentiator. MCoBeauty can give people access to trying multiple products that they might’ve seen on their For You page (FYP) for the price of one prestige product.”

National Dupe Day came just weeks after MCoBeauty launched in 1,200 Target stores with 100 SKUs. The retail launch was also extremely successful, leading MCoBeauty to debut at #8 in Target’s beauty category. Both initiatives put some additional strain on MCoBeauty’s supply chain to fulfill online orders and ensure retail shelves are fully stocked.

“I think if we had to do it all over again, we’d probably space the two out a bit,” joked Barker.

The viral social media activity surrounding National Dupe Day created a halo effect, leading to increased sales across the brand’s other channels, including Target, Amazon, and Kroger.

“People still have their preferred channels for discovering the brand,” said Barker. “Typically, when we see a spike like that, other channels slow down, but this time, everything grew, likely because we had a solid amount of activation across the board.”

National Dupe Day may be over for now, but Barker and Rojas are already thinking about how the brand will top the inaugural holiday’s record-breaking success in 2026.

“Certainly, the day is here to stay, but we want to find an original way to reimagine it going forward,” said Barker. “Value needs to be at the heart of everything we do, and so we'll find creative ways to do that in the future. Luckily, we've got twelve months to figure it out.”