The elaborate stuffing of Inside Payless to get people to pay $ 600 for shoes

There is, however, a Payless ShoeSource – a discount shoe retailer hoping to get things moving through a complex and expensive advertising joke – to attract new customers and change the perception that the company only sells cheap and old-fashioned shoes.

"We thought this campaign would be a great way to make many people consider Payless, and realize that it's not just a shoe store in the mall," he says. "said Sarah Couch, marketing director at Payless.

But the joke also points to a reality concerning the human spirit: consumers are not able to discern the quality and value of their purchases, said Philip Graves, British consultant in consumer behavior. Slap a fancy European label on a shoe at $ 30, and you have an illusion of status that people will pay an exorbitant amount for.

"The way we value things is done through badociations.If you put wine in a good bottle, people will like it more.If you pack things for that they have more premium air, people will love it more, "said Graves. "If advertising has high production qualities, people will think it's better."

The campaign was designed by a 10-person advertising company in Brooklyn. DCX Growth Accelerator specializes in media jokes, or what society calls "cultural piracy." A few weeks ago, the company presented their idea to Payless, who was planning to launch an unprecedented advertising campaign before the end of the year celebrations. DCX looked at Payless's early successes, why its momentum had stopped and what it could do to straighten the brand, said Doug Cameron, founder of DCX in 2015. Payless has closed hundreds of stores and laid off thousands of employees last year.

"We wanted to do something provocative, we wanted Payless to get back into the cultural discourse," Cameron said.

First of all, the team needed a venue for the fake launch party and found what they thought was the perfect: a former Giorgio Armani store in Santa Monica Place, an upscale mall that is home to stores such as Louis Vuitton, Barneys, Michael Kors and Tiffany & Co. The team has rented space for six weeks.

Second, they needed a name, and they wanted something that looked like Payless. One of the first ideas was a high-end Brooklyn-based boutique called Eli Pbad. But the team finally opted for an Italian theme. They rearranged the letters to Eli Pbad and came with Palessi.

"I think Bruno came later," said Cameron about the name of the fictional designer.

They hired an interior designer to help them create an authentic and luxurious look for the launch party, as well as people who would come forward as sales employees. They brought gold mannequins, hung bags of white paper and installed the angel statue with large wings in the middle. To push things a step further without revealing the joke, Cameron stated that they had rolled into statues of lions and a giraffe painted in gold.

The team said they kept most of what was already in the store, such as the glbad shelves, on which they carefully stole stilettos, pumps, sneakers, boots and leather shoes. They covered the original mark tags with stickers bearing the inscription "PALESSI" in black and clean characters, hitting price tags up to $ 1,800.

The team also created an Instagram account and began to overload it with untitled and random images of models and stilettos. They bought and created a website, almost empty except for the images of two stilettos on the hands of mannequins.

Finally, they finally needed potential consumers. Cameron calls it "the casting of a real person". They have traveled the streets and the Internet to look for influencers in social media, fashionable people who seem to participate in this type of event.

"They told us that it was a new store, a new brand and that the owner is waiting for comments," Cameron said.

On launch day, October 27, unsuspecting participants lined up on the outside. The DCX and Payless team used the back of the store as a kind of control room equipped with monitors connected to video cameras. As people arrived, paid interviewers and cameramen asked them what they thought about shoes and how much they would pay for them. Cameron and his team were at the back, dictating the questions with the help of microphones.

"Palessi is such a quality, both haute couture and high, that takes your shoe game to the next level," said a man wearing spiked collars, wearing a high-heeled boot and knees. "It looks really good."

"It's just beautiful – stylish, sophisticated and versatile," said a woman while she was holding a pair of floral stilettos.

"For me, living this as an Italian designer is incredible," said another man with an accent.

After the participants bought expensive shoes, some at $ 200, $ 400 and $ 600, they were taken behind the scenes, where the joke was revealed.

"You must make fun of me," said the woman who had sprung around the pair of floral stilettos, eyes wide as she stared at the expensive shoes in her hands.

The team said that those who had bought the shoes had the right to keep them for free.

Cat Chang, a diamond designer from Los Angeles, was an unsuspecting fashionistas. She said that she had not bought shoes because she had already bought several pairs a few days earlier. But she would have if she had found a pair of her size.

"We would never have known, we were really convinced," said Chang, who said she was paid to attend the event. "They fooled us, as completely."

Chang said the experience had made her rethink Payless and that she was planning to visit a store soon.

Graves, the UK consumer behavior consultant, said the advertising campaign would bring short-term benefits to Payless, but did not think it would hurt established luxury brands.

"Consumers are paying extremely high prices," he said. "Some of the pleasures we get from what we buy come from the money we spent for it."

He also does not believe that the elaborate farce described by Payless as a "multi-million dollar integrated marketing campaign" will have a lasting impact on the retailer's brand.

"The next time someone goes to a Payless store, he will enter the ordinary Payless environment and watch the regular Payless price," he said.

Couch, marketing director of Payless, hopes that Graves is wrong. She said that Payless was not limited to physical stores.

"The shopping experience on payless.com is different than the store … it's the segment of the fastest growing business," she said. "Stores are an extremely valuable part of the business, but the digital component is central to the campaign."

The Washington Post