Sunny Slip-Up

05 May Sunny Slip-Up

If you’re a business who can cash in on your product line in the summer, doing a giveaway at the start of the season is a great way to amp up sales and gain some attention. With clothing, Instagram has become the be-all end-all for businesses. And with Instagram’s new business profile option, and advertising initiatives, a clothing store would be foolish not to utilize this platform! However, businesses must do so carefully.

By now, you’ve probably seen a thousand photos of the infamous red swim-suit clad model sitting beside a pristine blue pool. If you’re unaware of what we’re talking about, here’s the gist: Sunny Co Clothing offered free ‘Pamela’ style swimsuits (featured in the photo) to those who liked and re-posted the original image on their IG. It sounds innocent enough right? Businesses do these types of promotions all of the time! Cut to 380,000 likes later and over a million reposts and, well, Sunny Co Clothing is in trouble. They owe A LOT of ladies swimsuits.

What Sunny Co Clothing did wrong:

1. Over-promised

We’re not sure what Sunny Co Clothing’s inventory is currently, but even a small business knows that putting a cap on free merchandise is always a good choice. It promotes your product as a limited and ‘hot’ item and it also prompts people to engage quickly (everyone loves to beat out the crowd).

2. Lacked Foresight

We don’t know if Sunny Co Clothing has an in-house marketing agency, but someone should have definitely stopped this gamble before it took off. Even with the simplest of marketing excursions it’s best to have a big ‘table read’ on what should and could happen.

3. Lacked Communication

Sunny Co Clothing, as of this moment, has still not responded to the outcry of rage from their participants who were charged the full price for the swimsuit. Perhaps they are waiting until their PR team comes up with the right response. But here’s one: We’re Sorry. Seriously, admitting you f****d up can be a great way to start rectifying the situation.

4. Forgot the CUSTOMER

This is the WORST part of all of this. This tactic was not about servicing their clients and potential clients in the best way possible. This was a prime example of how ‘viral’ can be dangerous. Sunny Co Clothing was barely known before this incident—they’re now one of the most meme-worthy brands of the week!

Your business and marketing tactics are precious! They should be handled and dealt with by a team that knows what they are doing. A 360 brand approach could have kept this disaster to a dull roar via social media. While we feel bad for Sunny Co Clothing, we can’t say they shouldn’t have seen it coming.