The Irish Fairy Door company has been enjoying great success in the past year, increasing their revenues by 50%, and the brand has received a boost in the US from a member of the Kardashian family.
The eldest Keeping Up With The Kardashians sibling, Kourtney, featured her son's personalised Irish Fairy Door on her Snapchat story twice in one day in late last year, which immediately elevated the brand's profile in the States.
Speaking to RTÉ Entertainment, company director and co-founder Niamh Sherwin Barry said: "Being featured on Kourtney Kardashian’s social media has helped us with awareness of our product in the USA. They are such an incredibly influential family and having one of our fairy doors appear on Kourtney’s Snapchat story was really wonderful for us.
"We knew we had sent them the door a year previously but there was no guarantee that they would even receive it so we were crossing our fingers. So seeing it pop up on Kourtney's Snapchat after that amount of time was a very pleasant surprise, and seemed to show they had been enjoying the magic of Irish Fairy Doors the whole time - there was great excitement in Fairy HQ that day!"
The Clondalkin-based company, which started trading in August 2013, has to date sold 500,000 fairy doors worldwide and employs 15 people in Dublin. Niamh said she is "really proud" of Kourtney Kardashian's endorsement of their product, and explains how it has helped them expand outside of Ireland.
"If she had tagged us it would have been a complete gamechanger for us. Having said that, it gives us great bargaining power when we're sitting in front of retailers, particularly in the US, to say that the Kardashians have one of these, so from that point of view it's absolutely invaluable to us", Niamh said.
"The Kardashians are the most influential family in the world and not only have they featured us on their social media, but there's a potential for us to feature again because of the nature of the product."
Kourtney featured the product on her social media without being paid by the company, who don't have that sort of marketing capital.
"I'm sure if were to offer her 200,000 grand she would endorse it, but obviously we're not in that position!", Niamh said. "But it was wonderful for us."
Irish Fairy Door recently landed a contract with Toys 'R' in the US, the UK and Australia and currently are concentrating on building the brand in Ireland and markets around the world.
