In the fight for the ultra-valuable sneaker-buying cohort of 15-to-34-year-old Gen Zers and millennials, Skechers may have been handed an easy win this year in the form of a viral TikTok phenomenon viewed more than 1 billion times and counting.
The song, titled “Skechers,” was originally posted by up-and-coming artist DripReport on YouTube in January and has since been viewed 57 million times. But DripReport’s track truly went viral when it was widely remixed on TikTok and other social media as consumers repeatedly took the “Skechers challenge.”
“The beauty of the ever-evolving digital landscape is the opportunity for truly global viral moments,” a Skechers spokesperson told Sourcing Journal. “Brands try and hope to create these moments—often by spending a lot and sometimes they find success, but the DripReport ‘Skechers’ track was 100 percent viral entirely because of 100 percent user-generated content.”
On TikTok—whose monthly users total 800 billion, according to the Business of Apps—2.3 million individual videos feature the “Skechers” track, says the footwear firm. Despite the fact the DripReport posted its own video to the viral video platform, a pair of “Skechers” videos created by two sisters have garnered 59 million views on TikTok—dwarfing the original artist’s 14.8 million views and demonstrating the power of user-generated content and social sharing.
The song’s influence has been so widespread that DripReport was also recently signed by Arista Records to release the track, which reached No. 1 on the Spotify U.S. Viral Chart and the Shazam U.S. Discovery Chart, as the artist’s debut single, Skechers said.
“On top of that, our own e-commerce sales in April were up more than 400 percent in the United States versus the same period last year, and we are seeing similar strong increases in our online business internationally and in accounts worldwide,” the spokesperson said.
In its latest earnings report, Skechers CEO Robert Greenberg lauded the company’s triple-digit e-commerce growth in April, though he did not specify to what extent sales had increased.
Skechers’ strong digital sales last month dovetails with the growing volume of online transactions across the fashion industry in recent weeks, considering the massive store closures related to the coronavirus pandemic. However, the rate of Skechers’ digital growth is notable compared to its peers.
Recently, Crocs reported 15.8 percent e-commerce growth in the first quarter and Adidas said its digital channels grew by 35 percent in the same period. Crocs said 2020 has delivered its highest level of Google search interest in 15 years.
