What did you expect from two Arizona frat stars?
Yes, indeed. The founders of Sunny Co. Clothing and the masterminds behind the red swimsuit saga are Alan Alchalel and Brady Silverwood, two University of Arizona undergrads who, according to their lovely bio, “have been friends since the 5th grade!” 
But even more interesting than girls buying overpriced ($64) pieces of fabric to cover their private parts from two bros behind a laptop in Tucson is the bold gonzo-marketing stunt that these guys unleashed today.
“Sharing is caring,” the Instagram promotion reads. “EVERYONE that reposts and tags us in this picture within the next 24 HOURS will receive a FREE Pamela Sunny Suit.” As I write this, there are over 300,000 reposts for this promotion. Alan and Brady now have two options: shell out some serious cash to give away hundreds of thousands of swimsuits, or say “We didn’t expect such a huge response!” withdraw the offer, and enjoy the free publicity.
If I was a betting man, I’d place my money on the latter.
How do you get attention in an attention economy? Boring things (like swimsuits) are expensive to market traditionally. In order for a neutral product to go viral, it takes a shocking or controversial tactic, maybe even something that risks the reputation of the product itself.
Offering a free swimsuit to anyone who shares a picture is a pseudo-event: it’s planted for the solely for the purpose of being talked about. It’s engineered to be newsworthy, and the conversation shifts from the product itself to the controversy over whether Sunny Co. Clothing is legit or not. The result is social media chatter and millions of website visits, neither of which happen with a paid advertisement.
Chances are the people who shared the picture won’t get a free swimsuit. But even if they do, that’s not what this is all about. It’s about making Sunny Co. Clothing the first brand anybody talks about when they buy swimsuits this summer.
As one tweet read this afternoon, “If you say gullible really slow it kinda sounds like ‘repost for a free swimsuit from sunny co clothing.’”
Dominic Vaiana studies writing and media strategy at Xavier University. His personal articles, essays, interviews, and book recommendations are sent in his monthly newsletter.
Any chance you’re just a little bit jealous?
Based on how you wrote your article, I seriously doubt you (with your extensive educational background in writing and media strategy) have any experience whatsoever running a business, negotiating with suppliers or managing a supply chain. Honestly, call it spade-to-spade – have you ever even seen a business’ financial statement in your life? If you had their financials in front of you, would you even know how to read through them? Or have any idea how they reflected their financial situation? Have you ever studied or had experience in business management? Sunny Co clothing is a business, not some lemonade stand or charity drive. As a business, therefore, in the United States business owners have access to and can secure financing (if necessary) for increases in production costs from this place called a bank. It’s been that way since banks were first established – they are the backbone of the modern economy.
How about your experience with marketing? Are you honestly saying that Sunny Co’s swimsuits are a “boring” product that’s difficult to market? Have you seen the swimsuits or looked at their website or Instagram account? Because their suits don’t seem the least bit boring to me – certainly not what I would describe as a “neutral product.” There’s nothing shocking or controversial about a company giving out free products to expand their customer base, the only thing shocking about it (at least to you) was their success in doing so. And don’t knock on their use of Instagram as a shallow form of advertising – in case you missed ECON 101, they’re targeting a specific demographic in select markets across the country. Their promotion on Instagram was brilliant, not only did they increase their brand recognition (from 8K follower to 600K followers in a single day), they did it at no cost.
According to you in your infinite wisdom as a public relations intern and part-time blogger, “Alan and Brady now have two options: shell out some serious cash to give away hundreds of thousands of swimsuits, or say “We didn’t expect such a huge response!” withdraw the offer, and enjoy the free publicity.” Well Dominic, I sincerely hope you are not in fact a betting man. Generally, people that gamble have at least a fundamental understanding of whatever it is they are betting on. If you’re going to criticize a small business owner on the way they run their operations, I suggest you look into getting a business degree because sound like a moron.
Now, it seems the only experience you do have is in writing. Do yourself a favor and try to not sound like you were the only freshman who didn’t get a bid after rush, okay? You call the founders “Arizona Frat Stars,” what exactly does that mean and how or why does that relate to the private company these two started? The fact is, it does not. It’s a name calling tactic that you hope will sway the reader’s opinion about these two individuals (guessing this is wear your classes in Media Strategy came in handy). Well, i don’t see two Arizona Frat Stars. I see two young, entrepreneurs who made major inroads in an industry that is notoriously difficult to enter.
If you’re going to criticize a small business owner on the way they run their operations, I suggest you look into a business or finance degree because sound like a frustrated, college grad whose learning what it means to show up for work everyday. There’s no need to lash out and belittle the success of others. You’re not sitting in some safe space in an Xavier dormitory, this is the real world and guess what? People can see right through you. While you may think their business you could have started your own clothing company to you as you scroll through Sunny Co’s Instagram You seem like the ideal candidate for news anchor at MSNBC or CNN. Maybe if you stopped belittling the achievements of your peers and applied yourself, you’d be able to find similar successes in your career.
Anyway, any press is good press right? You better make sure Alan and Brady send you a thank you note 😉
Good luck with everything.
Thanks!
I think your article was 100% accurate, continue on.
Dear Critic,
If you are going to take the time to degrade a college student’s peice at such length, please do yourself the favor of proofreading your own writing, especially when making unnecessary jabs. Your retort was that this student *emphasis on student* should consider pursuing a business degree, “because sound like a moron.” Sir, I believe you are missing the key word ‘you’ here. Please, do not call another writer “a moron” when you cannot effectively write your own insults.
Thank YOU.
I’m not sure if you’re 100% correct in attempting to tear the authors article apart limb-from-limb. Yes they wrote a biased article, yes some specifics were ignored to an extent. However, he does have a point with swimsuits being boring, they don’t do anything for you outside of aesthetics, they’re almost like perfume. Except, you can swim in plain clothes just fine. In terms of versatility compared to even perfume or cologne, this particular good only is useful for 1 occasion, which, is swimming. Also, it was an effective SM campaign and I applaud the efforts made by these entrepreneurs to get their brand name out there, but I do have a hard time seeing these men getting any secured financing from any bank or credit union (which will sell the financing to a bank anyway) without a minimum of 3 years in their business’s tax returns to show this is a successful or bankable product. The bank doesn’t just give you money because it’s the bank; they loan money if it’s essentially a sure-thing due to the tax return/credit necessity. And the question of business 101 appears here too: legal vs. ethical. Yes this was a legal thing to do (it seems) but it was completely unethical, and unethical business practice by enlarge is not good for the business environment or business cycle. Currently, people view businesses that are gaining profits as such a bad thing and they don’t need the money, because they isolate unethical behavior examples like this one, or pre-2008 with mortgage officers getting their 1% along with the back-end deals which at the time was legal but unethical. So all that we really have here is someone’s opinion mixed in with some factual information about what really happened, essentially like any other article. Let the author write whatever they want at least they didn’t leave supposedly 300k people empty handed when promised something. However maybe these guys pull it together and manage to blow up and I hope they do but either way I’m sure this is going to hurt for a while once this popularity wave dies down if they don’t use their fame efficiently in this limited amount of time they have to make something happen. Plus, it’s not really good publicity if your entire brand is known for blatantly lying to almost half a million people on the internet, bad PR as they say.
Let’s also acknowledge that giving away a product for free decreases it’s value. Lululemon, Nike, etc. never give things away because it’s worth paying for. Granted, this worked from a short-term publicity perspective. But I think they made a mistake in not taking a long-term loyalty approach.
Someone is really hanging on to that hope of a free swimsuit.
Why are you so angry
Lmao he said thanks
They did follow through with the offer but they capped it at a point. So while yes you’re right in a sense, you’re also wrong. I did get my “free” swimsuit with paid 13$ shipping. They did market themselves well, but they also followed through for probably 100’s of people.
I thought it was a great move and I received my code for the suit lastnight and ordered
Christopher Castelo,
After writing that long essay of a diatribe, you and all the other suckers who fell for this scam look downright foolish. Sunny Co has now officially deleted their Instagram account that the promo was allegedly designed to enhance in the first place. This is basically the social media version of the Nigerian Email Scam and they got several tens of thousands of people to fall for it.
Their instagram was hacked. Many people have their orders confirmed, they run a legit business.