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.