Payless is a shoe company that sells low priced shoes and because of this they have slowly become considered a “cheap” store. The company, in a brilliant marketing stunt, created a fake designer and a fake designer store to go with it where they sold Payless shoes for 200+ dollars. 

‘Palessi’ had a fake grand opening with many influencers and red carpet,  making it look as real as possible.

They released a video showing one woman saying,”I can just tell it’s really high quality” about a 20 dollar pair of heels. They then show the customers’ faces as they tell them it is all fake and these are Payless shoes, they look really shocked.

The people were refunded their money and got to keep the shoes they bought but they probably felt pretty embarrassed. This was a really interesting stunt showing how brand-obsessed people are today.  Slap a name brand on it and people will pay double or triple the price. Payless really did show that they have quality shoes at an affordable price.