{"id":4450,"title":"The story of a viral t-shirt campaign","description":"Dead Natives and The Ventnor Exchange. See how they took the opportunity to grow a simple idea into a viral bestseller in a single day, then sustained the campaign over weeks.","content":"

In this blog, we follow the story of the Isle of Wight t-shirt<\/a>, produced by Dead Natives and The Ventnor Exchange. See how they took the opportunity to grow a simple idea into a viral bestseller in a single day, then sustained the campaign over weeks.<\/p>

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The idea came from @jack_whitewood director of @ventnorexchange. On the 5th May, during Downing Street's press briefing, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock told the world about the launch of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) Contact Tracing App on the Isle of Wight. The quote became a hashtag instantly<\/p>

'Where the Isle of Wight leads, Britain follows'<\/p><\/blockquote>

Within minutes, Jack tweeted us at Rapa asking to collaborate and turn the quote into tees using Teemill.<\/p>

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Rapanui passed Jack's idea on to fellow Isle of Wight-based Teemill store, Dead Natives<\/a>. Jack and Dead Natives quickly collaborated on a bold, simple design and agreed to donate all the proceeds to the Ventnor Exchange's new youth program, Brave Island.<\/p>

If you want to build a viral design on a viral trend, speed counts.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>

Building a product on Teemill takes seconds. So the time between Jack's initial idea and the tee's first sale was a matter of hours - just as their Twitter thread was starting to take off.<\/p>

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When making tees to go viral, remember to keep your design simple and clear. If you spend days in design, you might miss the moment.<\/strong><\/p>

Designing slogan tees is really fast and easy in Teemill. Use the text tool, or search slogan for some templates. For more we wrote another post all about it, 5 ways to make better slogan t-shirts<\/a> ... but back to the story, where it started really kicking off.

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As soon as their tee was live, the Ventnor Exchange and Dead Natives launched it across all their social media platforms. When they built their product they used the built in ai photoshoot tool to put their design on a model.<\/p>

Images you create on your store are saved in your drive, accessible via the main menu.<\/p><\/blockquote>

The team downloaded this picture and used it for their comms.<\/p>

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The team also sent the story to their local newspaper, with a web link. They covered the story as it was relevant to the news. This helped the first 24 hours of the campaign reach a load of people, who shared it, and built momentum.<\/p>

Once you've built your product, it's all about hustling to get it in front of as many people as possible. Don't expect the internet to come to you.<\/p><\/blockquote>

Jack also tweeted Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely. Soon after he responded that he'd ordered a few tees, helping the product reach another set of followers.<\/p>

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Then the health secretary, Matt Hancock, chips in...<\/p>

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This took the story to a new level, and helped a huge number of people become aware of the tee. In context, we can see how the year has gone for the team with this new strategy.<\/p>

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The huge growth in orders scaled seamlessly with the automated systems in the Teemill factory. This meant the team had a little more time at hand. Rather than kick back and enjoy it, the team used their free time, and the proceeds from their early sales, to run a paid ad campaign on social media.<\/p>

Part of this included building some cool creative graphics and running a few variations to keep the ad fresh. But importantly the design stayed the same. It's counterintuitive, but repetition and seeing the same thing multiple times helps get people's attention.<\/p>

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They also encouraged the three-day momentum to keep building by sharing messages of thanks and re-posting their customers' selfies.<\/p>

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They took this kind of engagement and reposted it, and even included it with their ads, building social proof and making the campaign real.<\/p>

Once the campaign had reached a significant share of their target market, the team reinforced the message about community<\/p>

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And the plan going forward is to use the audience they've built up and the data from their ads campaigns, to build on their new customers and offer new products from their main line.<\/p>

Rather than recruit loads of new customers for a one-time purchase, the team are keeping them engaged on social media so that they can turn people who thought the tee was fun into lifetime customers who believe in the brand.<\/p>

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Could your brand be the place the next viral t-shirt campaign begins?<\/p>","urlTitle":"how-to-make-a-t-shirt-go-viral","url":"\/blog\/how-to-make-a-t-shirt-go-viral\/","editListUrl":"\/my-blogs","editUrl":"\/my-blogs\/edit\/how-to-make-a-t-shirt-go-viral\/","fullUrl":"https:\/\/teemill.com\/blog\/how-to-make-a-t-shirt-go-viral\/","featured":false,"published":true,"showOnSitemap":true,"hidden":false,"visibility":null,"createdAt":1589360407,"updatedAt":1680689753,"publishedAt":1641984321,"lastReadAt":null,"division":{"id":12,"name":"Teemill"},"tags":[{"id":30,"code":"marketing","name":"marketing","url":"\/blog\/tagged\/marketing\/"},{"id":40,"code":"inspiration","name":"inspiration","url":"\/blog\/tagged\/inspiration\/"},{"id":44,"code":"socialmedia","name":"socialmedia","url":"\/blog\/tagged\/socialmedia\/"}],"metaImage":{"original":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5ebbba2bd70c81.41045555.jpeg","thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5ebbba2bd70c81.41045555.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5ebbba2bd70c81.41045555.jpeg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"metaTitle":null,"metaDescription":"Learn how Dead Natives and the Ventnor Exchange took a slogan from the media and turned it into a bestseller through publicity.","keyPhraseCampaignId":4259,"series":[],"similarReads":[{"id":35,"title":"The 12 Best Movies For Business Startups 2025 - Netflix, Disney, Prime","url":"\/blog\/netflix-startups-business\/","urlTitle":"netflix-startups-business","division":12,"description":"Instead of scrolling through an Instagram feed or studying your mate's dinner on Facebook, we like the idea that as a store owner you can flip the relationship and use tech to make time on the sofa productive and profitable for you.","published":true,"metaImage":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5c9dcaa0289175.83327431.jpg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5c9dcaa0289175.83327431.jpg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"hidden":0},{"id":40,"title":"Streetwear photography inspiration from Nocturnal Creature","url":"\/blog\/streetwear-photography-inspiration\/","urlTitle":"streetwear-photography-inspiration","division":12,"description":"Instantly recognisable by their unique and edgy style, Nocturnal Creature's photography is fresh, fun and real. In this dose of Teemill inspo, we catch up with their founder to get his advice on how to create original photography for your brand.","published":true,"metaImage":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5c8dfcbad57ee4.57720394.jpg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5c8dfcbad57ee4.57720394.jpg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"hidden":0},{"id":43,"title":"The 7 best business books everyone should read","url":"\/blog\/best-business-books\/","urlTitle":"best-business-books","division":12,"description":"In The Matrix, Neo just sits in a chair, and Morpheus uploads Kung Fu, how to fly helicopters and loads of other languages into his brain. Neo can do anything. That's basically what books are, although they do take a little longer. So we've pre-sorted some of the best business books that we've read and found useful for people building a brand online. Learn from successful entrepreneurs, read their journey to success and build an entrepreneurial mindset so you can make your brand a success.","published":true,"metaImage":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5c8e29ea58d3b2.79971756.jpg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5c8e29ea58d3b2.79971756.jpg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"hidden":0}],"labels":[]}