Crabcakes & Gold Medals - Olympic victories prove golden for a local apparel company
HUNT VALLEY, MD – American athletes, especially those with a Maryland connection, have been golden at the Rio Olympics and have been dominating the news, and local conversations. But they’re also making a splash for another Maryland connection, RouteOneApparel. The company’s brand new “Crabcakes & Gold Medals – That’s what Maryland does!” shirt design is a viral hit on social media with a quarter million views in just one day as the state’s athletes continue to win.
“I saw customers and friends sharing stories about Michael Phelps wins and other Marylander's successes like Katie Ledecky and Chase Kalisz, and I realized that Maryland was pretty much dominating Olympics talk,” explains Ali von Paris, CEO and Founder of RouteOneApparel, a company that creates original trendy, affordable state pride apparel and accessories incorporating the state flag and local symbols. “We as a community are really proud of that success and positive stories about our state. So I thought, what better way to showcase that pride than by saying we're all about them gold medals!”
She set out to draw up the design late Wednesday night when the concept came to her. She continued working on it the morning after and posted a teaser on her company’s Instagram page on Thursday, August 11, 2016 just to see people's thoughts. The result was an explosion of interest.
“It got shared and liked by thousands of people almost immediately, so I put it up for sale quickly,” von Paris explains.
Thanks to a strong relationship with her screen printers von Paris was able to rush the shirts into immediate production. When she put the new design up for sale and posted about it on the Company’s social media, she generated nearly 250,000 impressions and tens of thousands of clicks. In one day.
The design is inspired by the "Crabcakes & Football" shirt that has been one of the company’s bestselling shirts for several years. Like all of RouteOneApparel’s products, state pride is front and center on the new shirt. And it’s selling fast.
With more events still to come, von Paris is pleased to see interest so strong in her new design. To help promote Maryland pride, she’s giving away free shirts on her Facebook page, too, one for every 500 shares through Monday, August 15, 2016. In just over 24 hours, she’s up to giving away four shirts. And to make sure everyone has one to wear for the rest of the Olympics, she’s offering $5 off all shirts with the promo code “GOLD” until August 25. Just visit http://bit.ly/2aJLhTy to order a shirt today.
