634There are always people saying that building a brand is difficult and selling products is hard. But the strange thing is, sometimes your product is clearly better than others, yet consumers are more willing to pay for someone else’s.
In the end, today’s consumption logic has long since changed—feeling and emotion are now the key drivers of purchase.
As long as a product can hit the consumer’s emotions at the moment and provide enough emotional value, they will place an order in minutes.
On the contrary, no matter how good your product is, if users don’t perceive its value, they won’t even be interested in taking a second look.
Image source:Comfrt
Take simple clothing like sweatshirts, for example. Tens of thousands of brands launch new products every day. Standing out and getting consumers to buy repeatedly sounds almost impossible.
But there really is a brand that has done it. It keenly captured the widespread anxiety and loneliness in contemporary society, and used this as its core entry point, giving each sweatshirt the unique positioning of“wearable comfort”.
It is precisely this pain-point-targeted product positioning that allowed it torise rapidly in 3 years,with revenue exceeding500 million USD (over 3.5 billion RMB), becoming a super category bestseller in one leap.(Data from BrandArk)
This brand is Comfrt.
Image source:Comfrt
From Personal Pain Point to Brand Original Intention:The Birth Story of Comfrt
According to public information online,the origin of the Comfrt brand is closely related to the personal experience of founder Hudson Leogrande.
He dropped out of school at a young age, was long plagued by depression and anxiety, and even became homeless for a time. This difficult past made him develop an extreme psychological longing for a warm embrace.
Looking at the present, about359 million people worldwide are suffering from anxiety. Especially in the post-pandemic era, consumers’ demand for clothing has shifted from simple physical comfort to deeper psychological comfort, and “anti-anxiety” has gradually become a new consumption trend.
It was this real experience, combined with insight into current social needs, that inspiredHudson Leogrande to create clothing that brings a lasting sense of embrace. Using slightly weighted special fabrics to simulate the feeling of being hugged, it conveys a strong sense of security and healing.
In 2022, the Comfrt brand was officially born.
Image source:Comfrt
In terms of product style,Comfrt insists on genderless design and minimalist silhouettes, which can meet the needs of various occasions and precisely hit the mainstream preferences of young people.
To meet the aesthetic needs of different personalities, it has also launched a diverse color series, from basic black, white, and gray to fresh and soft pink, blue, yellow, green, and purple, almost covering all style preferences of the target user group.
In terms of pricing,Comfrt chooses a people-friendly route, ranging from $19 to $150, making it an everyday choice that ordinary people can easily afford.
Even more thoughtful, the brand prints different positive words on each product, such as“Love” and “You Matter”. It is this kind of subtle design that makes its products more than ordinary goods, becoming an emotional medium for conveying warmth and self-affirmation, quickly gathering a group of loyal followers.
Now,Comfrt takes the US market as its core and has gradually covered Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, 12 EU countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc.), Japan, South Korea, and 28 other countries and regions, making it one of the hottest dark horse brands in the global apparel track.
Image source:Comfrt
Social Media Empowerment: Driving Global Growth with Content
Of course, relying solely on style design and affordable pricing is far from enough to make a product truly popular in the market.
To be seen and purchased by more potential users, you have to use ways that young people like, conveying a sense of companionship and warmth in everyday moments.
AndTuke, this phenomenal social media platform, is the perfect tool to reach target consumers. It can be said that the rapid rise of the Comfrt brand owes much to Tuke as a key driver.
OnTuke, Comfrt has established its own brand account @comfrt. As of now, the account has accumulated 661,600 followers and received 5.6 million likes.
Image source:Tuke
Unlike the marketing strategies of most apparel brands,Comfrt, in order to get closer to consumers and strengthen the brand’s sense of companionship, abandoned the traditional hard-sell model in its content layout, and instead used street interviews and fun Q&A to convey the brand’s warmth.
Image source:Tuke
Among its viral videos, the one with the highest views is a street interview that precisely hits users’ pain points.
To convey the brand concept that“people of different body shapes can find suitable outfits”, the team specially invited male and female interviewees with a height difference of two feet (60.96cm) to discuss the dressing troubles of tall and short people.
This kind of life-like conversation not only conveys the brand’s inclusiveness but also resonates with users, ultimately achieving46.4 million views and 970,000 likes—an impressive result.
In the comments section, many users shared their own experiences and thoughts on height and dressing, and the Comfrt brand responded warmly and thoughtfully, replying to comments one by one, even joking and interacting with everyone, maximizing affinity.
This not only fits the brand’s consistent message of warmth and healing, but also genuinely brings the brand closer to its users.
Image source:Tuke
In addition to carefully operating its ownbrand account,Comfrt also actively collaborates with many active creators on the Tuke platform,leveraging influencer traffic for efficient breakout.
According tokalodatadata, in the past six months, the brand has sold a total of125,340products, with a total transactionamountreaching343 million RMB. Among them,the transaction amount brought by affiliate influencer channels reached304 million RMB, accounting for88.78%, becoming the coregrowth engine.
During the same period,a total of6,839 influencers participated in brand promotion, with30,600new videos released,averaging over a thousand new videos per day,creatingacontinuous and intensive communication momentum.
Image source:kalodata
Among all the promotional videos, the one with the most outstanding conversion effect came from a collaboration withTuke fashion influencer @jordyn_gunderson.
Image source:Tuke (top), kalodata (bottom)
In the video,jordyn_gunderson tries on Comfrt’s T-shirt and shorts, deliberately showing a variety of colors of the same style, repeatedly touching the fabric throughout, and saying it feels as soft as butter, comfortable and skin-friendly.
Such a real try-on video received a great response, with many potential consumers in the comments section actively sharing their height and weight data, asking the influencer for size recommendations.
Image source:Tuke
In the end, the video reached15.68 million views, directly driving the sale of 26,500 products, with a total transaction amount of 4.22 million RMB.
It’s not hard to see that this kind of real try-on content can help brands dispel potential users’ concerns about choosing and buying, playing a key role in driving order conversion.
Image source:kalodata
The Apparel Track Is in a Dividend Period
According tograndviewresearch data,the global apparel market size reached $1.7 trillion in 2024 and will grow to $2.3 trillion by 2030, with a stable annual compound growth rate of 4.2%.
This means that although market competition is fierce, the overall growth space is still very considerable, especially for brands that are good at identifying needs and daring to innovate. Now is still a golden window period for laying out the global market.
Image source:grandviewresearch
As long as you find the right differentiated positioning, break out of the factory mindset, and cultivate your brand with user thinking, Chinese apparel companies have every opportunity to replicatethe success path of the Comfrt brand, and even achieve greater breakthroughs in the future.
