Sunny Co Clothing: When Social Media Marketing is TOO Successful

If you’ve been on Instagram sometime in the past 24 hours, then chances are you’ve seen this red one-piece…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BTmsykflZzx/

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.

If you say gullible really slow it kinda sounds like "repost for a free swimsuit from sunny co clothing"

— Terrance Jamarcus (@tj_harmon) May 3, 2017

Instagram users’ feeds were soon flooded.

Everyone girl this summer in their Sunny Co Clothing suit pic.twitter.com/5lKimCGYXX

— Luke Boles (@LukeBoles56) May 3, 2017

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?

Sunny Co Clothing's marketing team today: pic.twitter.com/YRUiYH6Hq3

— Kevin Schmevin (@Acecicle) May 3, 2017

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.”

GAMETIME! Promo Rules As Follows: 1. No Exchanges/Returns, All Promo Orders Final. 2. Code Valid for 24 hr. only, No Exceptions. 3. Due to the viral volume of participants, we  reserve the right to cap the promotion if deemed necessary. 4. Participants must pay Shipping & Handling 5. Due to the overwhelming volume of orders we will work as fast as we can to process + ship (approx. 3-6 weeks) but there may be delays. 6. Promo Code will only work for Participants who reposted and tagged us. Limited to 1 Suit per participant. 7. Shout out to @twazerapp for sponsoring this promotion. 8. Promo Code: Sunny Xoxo, Sunny Team

A post shared by Sunny Co Clothing (@sunnycoclothing) on May 3, 2017 at 2:58pm PDT

When you realize you got scammed by Sunny Co Clothing and aren't getting a free swimsuit. pic.twitter.com/G2BWBUe85q

— Austin Pendergist (@apthirteen) May 3, 2017

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.