You might not be familiar with Laguna Beach Textile Company, but you’ve probably seen one of its blankets recently.
Earlier this month, an Instagram story of Selena Gomez looking zen while wrapped in the brand’s Cabo Mexican blanket became a meme, creating an unexpected marketing opportunity as the image traveled across social media.
Lauren Franks, director of branding and partnerships at Laguna Beach Textile Company, told us that the brand sold blankets to a private member’s club in Malibu, where she said the photo was taken, but she could have “never imagined” those sales would lead to something like this.
“The buck stopped with, ‘I’m happy to have the blankets here because the clientele will like us as a luxury good, and they’ll be able to see our tag or logo on these blankets as they use them,’’ she said. “Then this all happened.”
Danny Meurer, the brand’s president and founder, told us it has sold around 200 blankets, a 400%–500% increase from normal sales rates, since the meme took off. According to Franks, social engagement is also up, with one TikTok getting more than 91,000 views compared to its average of around 1,200.
After capitalizing on the meme’s popularity, they said the hope is to keep the meme-ntum going with holidays like Halloween and Christmas on the horizon.
Right place, right time
While a viral moment wasn’t the intention when the brand sold its blankets to the club, Meurer said Laguna Beach Textile Company has “historically tried to get lucky with stuff like this,” placing its towels on shows like Love Island USA.
When the photo was posted, Meurer said the team’s response was, “‘Okay, how do we quickly tie our brand to that photo?’ Because there was no payment to Selena and no link in the Instagram post, so we had to get it out there.”
Franks said the initial response was to put paid media behind a repost of the photo of Gomez on its social channels to promote the blanket. Once the photo evolved into a meme and articles started coming out about it, she said she pivoted to drafting a press release and doing media outreach with the help of a PR partner.
“It was timing, and it was making it urgent and getting that press release in front of the right people at the right time,” she said. And those efforts paid off: According to Meurer, the brand “didn’t see a huge lift in sales” until it established brand attribution in the press.
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But that doesn’t mean it turned away from social. Franks said LBTC put ads out across TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest and has been responding to TikTok comments inquiring about the blanket. The product page for the blanket was also updated to include the photo of Gomez, and the brand has been reposting and repurposing some of the memes across social channels.
Franks said she’s also been sending blankets to TikTokers—including some who have used different blankets in their meme videos—to potentially be used in future organic content.
While brand safety can be a concern during an organic viral moment, Meurer said his philosophy is, “We’re such a small brand, all publicity is good publicity.” When YouTuber Trisha Paytas posted a spoof of the photo on TikTok wearing the blanket while talking about Hurricane Hilary, Franks said she received “very divided feedback as to whether to run with that or not,” but ultimately decided to.
According to Franks, it ended up being “great press” for the brand. “It starts with, ‘Okay, let’s milk every opportunity out of this while we can because it’s not long-term news,’” Franks said. “The way that the internet is these days, these things are gone in like a blip of time, so you have to make sure the most amount of people see it in the quickest amount of time.”
Making the most of it
Given the fleeting nature of the internet, Meurer said the challenge now is figuring out how to continue using this opportunity to sell more blankets, while also managing production expectations since the blankets are handmade by artisans in Mexico.
“We’ve already heard people online talking about it being a very easy Halloween costume, so I think that’s another sales moment,” he said, adding that it could also be “a little bit of a cheeky Christmas gift.”
To date, Meurer said the brand has spent about $2k on PR services and $1.5k on paid ads. Looking ahead, he said another challenge will be figuring out how to target their paid ads leading up to the holidays given that the people who plan to buy the blanket for a costume might not be their typical customers.
“That’s probably where the marketing continues, and probably, frankly, where it ends,” he said. Long term, he said the hope is that this moment helps build credibility and brand awareness for the brand, calling it “fortuitous” that this meme happened.
“A big shout out and thank-you to Selena for being such a good sport,” Franks added.
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