This Season’s Warm and Fuzzy Holiday Story
[guest post by JVW]
Payless taught fashion influencers a lesson about shoes by opening a fake store that sold Main Street shoes at Madison Avenue prices.
Payless ShoeSource held a launch party in Los Angeles for the bogus label Palessi and invited the fashionistas to sample the merchandise. Payless posted a video of what happened on Facebook.
The VIP shoppers paid as much as $645 for shoes that sell from $19.99 to $39.99 at Payless. The store rang up $3,000 before Payless came clean with the reveal.
One shopper exclaimed, “Shut up! Are you serious?”
The pranked shoppers got their money back and were allowed to keep the shoes.
Their reactions will be featured in a series of commercials.
That’s modern America for you. Once upon a time these gullible “influencers” would have slunked away in bitter embarrassment, but today when you tell them they will be in a commercial they are happy to sign the release form and showcase their pretentiousness to the entire world. I guess Ovid pegged this two millennia ago: spectatum veniunt, lenient spectentur ut ipsae.
– JVW
I never thought of the idea of following Payless Shoes on Facebook.
JVW (42615e) — 11/30/2018 @ 4:21 pmIf they charged $500 average a pair of shoes they only needed 6 idiots to reach $3000.
A partial parallel is how Kenneth Cole started his shoe business
(From here
Kishnevi (5b662e) — 11/30/2018 @ 5:02 pmhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Cole_Productions
Great marketing idea. Whoever thought it up should get a nice Christmas bonus, at the very least.
Paul Montagu (8afb2a) — 11/30/2018 @ 5:07 pmP.T. Barnum is laughing in his grave.
Ed from SFV (6d42fa) — 11/30/2018 @ 5:10 pmMy daughter gives $100 to Nike for Converse shoes that I used to give $2 to Mr. Woolworth for. And mine were better quality, made in the USA. Marketing is everything.
nk (dbc370) — 11/30/2018 @ 5:15 pmnk, if those are actually the real Chucks you used to wear, your daughter shouldn’t be paying anything more than $50-55 for them. And about $10 less for the low-tops.
Kishnevi (5b662e) — 11/30/2018 @ 5:29 pmThese ones, kishnevi. https://www.nike.com/t/converse-x-golf-le-fleur-chuck-70-high-top-unisex-shoe-X8Rk4m/163170C-128
nk (dbc370) — 11/30/2018 @ 5:46 pmConverse did a very clever thing with Chuck Taylors and rolled out a program where you can now design your own and have them specially made. My understanding from my nieces is that it’s a big deal for teenage girls to design them and give them to friends as gifts. As nk alluded to, the brand is now owned by Nike.
JVW (42615e) — 11/30/2018 @ 6:07 pmThee’s a story that the great violinist Joshua Bell played in the Washington DC subway and hardly anyone paid any attention to him.
Charlie Davis (92fc73) — 11/30/2018 @ 6:11 pmHilarious!!!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/30/2018 @ 6:12 pmNot bad for a guy who couldn’t afford a hotel room.
Dave (1bb933) — 11/30/2018 @ 7:44 pmAhhhh, yes. Yes, indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHgv4McMJUk
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/30/2018 @ 8:18 pmR.I.P. George H.W. Bush.
41 was 94.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/30/2018 @ 8:55 pmRIP
harkin (a53154) — 11/30/2018 @ 9:04 pmR.I.P. and / y D.E.P., those that refer to Bush as Boosh be damned!
urbanleftbehind (5e7f00) — 11/30/2018 @ 9:09 pmForget the “Devil Wears Prada” fashion industry. I still like bell-bottoms and t-shirts! Feet are ugly – so covering ’em up with bell bottoms always made sense to me.
Tillman (61f3c8) — 11/30/2018 @ 10:06 pmThose cropped pants look silly too. “High-waters.”
Made me think of Allen Funt and Candid Camera.
mg (ebf6c2) — 12/1/2018 @ 12:34 amI’m thinking of an Andy Griffith segment where a shoe salesman came to town; was told he was going to be fired because his sales were so poor; and because the women in town were trying to prove a point about men gossiping (they spread a rumor that he was there to interview talent for some kind of TV show); he sold a huge number of shoes while listening to people’s kids sing and play the saxophone.
Rochf (877dba) — 12/1/2018 @ 6:32 pm