While reviewing JBL’s 2024 sales data, we noticed something strange. One of our best-selling products, the JBL PartyBox, was returned over 12,000 times last year—80% more than the year before.
Even more strange was the return pattern: the PartyBoxes were being bought on Fridays, only to be returned on the following Monday. Now, why could that be?
Given the price point of the PartyBox and our Gen Z target audience, the answer was obvious: return culture. Young people taking advantage of the system to party with a crazy-loud speaker all weekend—money back guaranteed.
So, what do you do when you realize customers are taking advantage of your free returns policy, driving returns up 80%? You hire the greatest return man of all time, Devin Hester, to drop a nine-foot, thousand-pound PartyBox on the doorstep of one real serial returner.
And teach them not to make returns they might regret in the future.
We knew that our irreverent audience would never respond to bribery, a preachy lecture, or a policy change. To change their return habits, we had to meet their mischievous behavior with some trollish behavior of our own.
Enter, the Unreturnable PartyBox. A nine-foot, thousand-pound PartyBox dropped on the doorstep of a real frequent returner daring them to try to return it.
Our goal? To teach our frequent returner—and our 800 thousand followers—to stop making returns they might regret.
Over the next 3 months, we saw a noticeable decrease in year-over-year PartyBox return rates versus all other returns.
Not only were over 300 students organically drawn to our live event with no prior promotion, but the surrounding social content garnered millions of views— earning 23k new followers, 2,024% higher-than-average views, 2,435% higher-than average engagement and a 78% higher follower growth rate.
Thanks to this phenomenal growth, PartyBox sales have since skyrocketed 61%.
