The ultimate goal of any digital marketing campaign is to make a huge splash that helps to drive brand awareness amongst consumers. However, is it possible that a campaign can go too well? Recently, a swimsuit company called Sunny Co Clothing found out that the answer to that question is most definitely yes. The brand posted to its Instagram page an image of the Pamela Sunny Suit, one of their most popular swimsuit styles with a retail value of $64.99, and said that anyone who reposted the picture and tagged them within 24 hours would receive a free swimsuit just in time for summer. Unexpectedly, the promotion was a huge success, with more than 300,000 likes and 100,000 comments on the photo, as well as tens of thousands of reposts of the image (I can personally attest to the fact that the day this promotion was launched, my Instagram feed was flooded with the image of this now-famous swimsuit). In fact, in just a day, the San Diego-based company’s account grew from 7,000 followers to more than 700,000.
For a major corporation that was prepared for such an influx of orders, this promotion would be considered a smash success. Unfortunately, Sunny Co is a small, regional brand that ultimately did not end up having the capabilities of fulfilling the promises of the promotion. The company has since said it will make its “best effort” to fulfill more than 50,000 orders for the swimsuit within 3-6 weeks. It’s also been hit hard financially by having to issue refunds to customers to paid full price for that particular swimsuit style prior to the promotion, as they’ll now no longer be receiving their order – this has cost Sunny Co a whopping $73,000 in refunds alone.
That said, it’s not all bad news for Sunny Co Clothing. While the company’s customer service may have taken a hit (along with undoubtedly the stress levels of their staff), the promotion generated massive publicity, with coverage running in many major media outlets including TIME magazine, Seventeen, AdWeek, TeenVogue, The Washington Post, CNET, Perez Hilton, AOL Lifestyle, Buzzfeed, E! News, Vogue and the New York Post. For a little swimsuit company owned by two University of Arizona graduate students, that’s not too shabby.
