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Sunny Co Clothing: When Social Media Marketing is TOO Successful

A viral marketing campaign leaves the makers of this swim suit drowning in unfulfilled orders.

| Jane Motter

Between Fyre Festival last week and Sunny Co Clothing’s “free” swimsuit giveaway yesterday, it’s been a dubious few days in the world of Instagram marketing.

If you’ve been on Instagram sometime in the past 24 hours, then chances are you’ve seen this red one-piece…

Sunny Co Clothing, founded by two current seniors at the University of Arizona, promised a “free” suit (customers still had to pay shipping costs) to anyone who reposted the image and tagged the company’s Instagram page.

Instagram users’ feeds were soon flooded.

For Sunny Co:
The good news: Their marketing campaign had gone viral.
The bad news: Their marketing campaign had gone viral.
… would they be able to keep up with demand?

Following the 3pm cut-off for reposting, Sunny seemed to have realized they were in over their heads and decided retroactively to “reserve the right to cap the promotion if deemed necessary.”

The takeaway?

For Sunny Co: Next time disclose that there are limited supplies in the original promotion.

For consumers: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Even if you are one of the lucky few to snag the “free” suit before supplies run out, Sunny Co has still collected your valuable information, such as your name, number, and email address, that can then be sold to marketers.

Jane Motter

Jane worked on a variety of advocacy initiatives for TINA.org. She assisted mainly in researching and collecting evidence for TINA.org legal actions and consumer news stories.

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