On Friday, Candace Payne’s video of herself laughing hysterically in her car in a Kohl’s parking lot while wearing a Chewbacca mask made pretty much the entire Internet laugh.
It garnered more views than any other video recording on the Facebook Live streaming service — and is now up to almost 137 million views. And Kohl’s response to her video was nothing other than genius.
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Candace, a 37-year-old mother of two, confessed in her original video, ‘I’d like to say that I bought this for my son, who would really, really want it. He’ll probably take it from me. However, this is mine. When it’s said and done, at the end of the day, this is mine that I bought and I’m going to keep it for my own.’
Kohl’s then reposted the video, and people flocked to get the funny mask.
According to Forbes, a Kohl’s representative said that ‘Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens Chewbacca Electronic Mask’ was originally $44.99 but was put on clearance after Payne’s video sparked ‘an overwhelming amount of interest.’ It subsequently sold out on the Kohl’s website late Friday.
The price of the mask was inflated by sellers on Amazon, now selling for as much as $170.
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As a thank you to Mrs. Payne for sharing her video, a Kohl’s representative showed up at her home Grand Prairie, Texas, to surprise her and her family with $2,500 in Kohl’s gift cards, 10,000 rewards points to use just in time for back-to-school shopping and tons of ‘Star Wars’ toys for her and her family, including none other than three additional Chewbacca masks.
‘We don’t want you to stress about having to share your Chewbacca mask so we confiscated masks for everybody,’ the representative said.
Kohl’s then shared the video on its Facebook page and captioned it, ‘The happiest Chewbacca.’
The response by Kohl’s had customers beaming over the company:
‘I loved Kohls before, now I love Kohls even more! Wonderful! Candace congratulations on being rewarded for spreading such joy and laughter!!â¤Ã¯¸’
Others who weren’t necessarily customers took notice also:
In an era when so much can and does go wrong when it comes to public relations and social media, Kohl’s was a perfect example of P.R. done right.
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