But first, the backstory: In May, California-based retailer Sunny Co Clothing announced a sweet deal: Anyone — yes, anyone — who re-posted a photo of the “Pamela Sunny Suit,” a $64 Baywatch-inspired one-piece (available in red and black) and tagged the company within 24 hours, received a free suit save for shipping and handling costs.
Unsurprisingly, the company post was shared and tagged more than 346K times and social media became over-saturated with the photo, from women vying to win the suit to men poking fun at the frenzy, and the birth of humorous memes.
Even Olympic gymnast Simone Biles pleaded for the madness to end.
please stop posting the red bathing suit picture
Sunny Co experienced a spike in Instagram followers from 7K to 784K and was temporarily shut down, according to a press release. The company also issued $73,000 in refunds to customers who unintentionally paid full price for the suit.
On May 3, due to the “overwhelming volume of orders,” the company announced in an Instagram post that it was capping the promotion and warned customers of possible shipping delays. Then, complaints rolled in that some were charged for the bathing suit — not just the shipping costs — and Sunny and Co. experienced a full-blown PR crises.
However, in June, a slew of happy customers began showing off their new suits.
I actually got my Sunny Co. suit
Welp… it finally came in guys.
#sunnyco
It wasn’t a scam people #sunnyco
When u actually end up getting your sunny co bathing suit
the sky is purple!!!! Also happy about my sunny co swimsuit
Your wcw actually won the sunny co bathing suit from insta. It’s me I’m ur wcw
sunny co came thru on shipping the suit but highkey I still feel scammed pic.twitter.com/38hUSAuHIW
— churro enthusiast (@debrizzzle) June 16, 2017
When everyone said that bathing suit (sunnyco) was fake lol :}
for any of u mfs wondering, sunny co clothing was not on games
