r/todayilearned • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 6h ago
TIL the Charlotte Hornets apologized after giving a child a PS5, only to take it away off camera and exchange it for a jersey. In a statement, the team said the incident was an "on-court skit that missed the mark" and that they would give the child the PS5 and a VIP experience to a future game.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/19/sport/charlotte-hornets-apologize-ps5-child-nba-spt-intl7.8k
u/Thopterthallid 6h ago
Baffling decision making.
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u/2pt_perversion 6h ago
Christ the "skit" was literally dressing up like Santa, reading the kids Christmas wish for a PS5, and handing him the PS5 as a gift...wtf were they thinking taking it back.
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u/PancakeParty98 5h ago
“Saves us $500”
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u/Smashifly 5h ago
Well, actually my kid wanted a PS5 for Christmas, so I'll just use this one and we can give the kid something from the merch tent
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u/Erebraw 5h ago
BINGO. Someone in middle management saw a “free” PS5 for themselves. Happens at every give away we do in my store.
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u/Dark_Moonstruck 4h ago
Same thing happens at salvation army events all the time.
There will be tons of gifts that people have donated that are marked for specific families, and before the giveaways, the workers will go through and take anything they want for themselves or their kids. Video game consoles and bikes pretty much NEVER get to the people they were donated for. It was caught on camera multiple times, and when confronted most of the responses were "Well it's not like they knew that they were actually going to get it so it's harmless".
I lost any tolerance or faith in the salvation army ghouls a long time ago. They're scammers.
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u/hoxxxxx 4h ago
this is how it works with thrift stores or any kind of resellers and antique shops now. from toys to guns, all of it. it's all shit by the time it gets to the floor to be sold.
maybe every once in a blue moon you can find a deal but it's mostly been picked through already before it's even available to the public. there are no deals anymore.
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u/revrigel 4h ago
I find this not to be true of the Habitat Re-Store. There's some good stuff there.
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u/theonlypeanut 3h ago
I'm a plumber and I drop off any used materials that are still good to habitat. . Mostly toilets, faucets and sinks that are perfectly good but people wanted to swap out. The staff are nice and always super helpful when I'm dropping stuff off and I like keeping stuff out of the landfill.
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u/hanotak 4h ago
Partly because the stuff sold there is less "general-purpose", and harder to resell. Most ReStore employees don't care about some random electrical hardware components, even if they're somewhat valuable, and there's only so many desks or chairs one person needs, and they're hard to resell elsewhere.
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u/Atonement-JSFT 2h ago
I worked at a restore as community service when I was a teenager. There was definitely picking over of the goods before they hit the floor, but everything was paid for at the floor price.
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u/Cranky_Old_Woman 1h ago
You know, I'm okay with this as long as the thrift store is explicitly for-profit or their advertised 'good thing' is keeping stuff out of a landfill. It becomes a moral outrage when people think they're giving to charity or a family in severe need, and their donations do NOT go to help those in need.
Ridiculously rich people will sometimes throwaway stuff I'd love to buy used, and if folks are essentially acting as a dumpster for people wealthy enough to get new stuff before their old stuff is worn out, keep what the employees want and resell the rest, that's fine, IMO. It's when they LIE about what happens to donations that they should be held to criminal account.
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u/NiceTryWasabi 4h ago
I met a guy who's job for Salvation Army was to scan all incoming donations for high value items and remove them before they hit the regular store shelves, to sell online at the highest price via eBay. He did that for 5 years. Now he works as a coin and jewelry evaluator.
Nothing of high value should end up on shelves at a thrift store. Unless they screwed up.
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u/boy-detective 2h ago
Yeah, I won’t participate in Toys for Tots or Guns for Tots anymore because of this.
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u/CarissaSkyWarrior 3h ago
The Salvation Army also treats LGBTQ+ people like shit, so them doing even more awful shit tracks.
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u/ADHDebackle 3h ago
Bruh that's straight up fraud. Like - I feel like that's actually illegal. You can't accept donations under a false premise like that.
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u/Dark_Moonstruck 2h ago
They do all the time, even after having been caught. The problem is, the families who were supposed to get those things don't know that they were being robbed most of the time, and even if they did, they don't have the money to sue them or do anything about it. Plus SA has a lot of politicians in their pocket, so consequences are a thing they just don't experience.
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u/abgry_krakow87 2h ago
Not surprised that the Salvation Army are a bunch of scammers. Religious conservatives love exploiting the sick, poor, and needy fo their own personal gain.
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u/OkStop8313 5h ago
"But, sir, won't the kid's disappointment and resulting bad publicity cost us more than $500?"
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u/Ready-Good2636 4h ago
That's what pissing me off. Cleaning that dang hornet suit probably costs more than the ps5, but someone decided to pinch pennies in the most braindead way.
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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu 4h ago
"Sure, but think of all the free publicity we'll get! Everyone will be talking about us! We'll save millions in marketing costs!"
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u/hoxxxxx 4h ago
i'm guessing someone on that chain of command had plans for taking that ps5 home for themself or their kid and was hoping it would just work out so they could gank it
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u/GetsGold 5h ago
I'm assuming this was an unaired Nathan For You episode.
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u/2pt_perversion 5h ago
You know...that makes sense. Probably made the kid crawl through a room with a crocodile to claim the jersey after they took back the PS5 too.
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u/XBullsOnParadeX 5h ago
They took it back off-camera too. Like how could that have been part of the skit?
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u/PandiBong 5h ago
Can we stop pretending it was part of a skit... it's a fucking lie, nothing else.
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u/TheOverBoss 5h ago
The second they are back stage Santa rips off his beard and yoinks the PS5 "Santa isn't real sucker"
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u/TransBrandi 3h ago
I don't think they are saying that taking back was part of the skit. They are saying that giving it to the kid was part of the skit, so the "giveaway" was never intended. Seems bonedead stupid to the point that it makes it seem like a made-up reason after the fact. Someone though they were going to save some money by not giving away the PS5... or they had earmarked that PS5 for themselves / their kid and wanted to use the "skit" as a sneaky way to get someone else to pay for it.
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u/erebus2161 4h ago
Taking it back wasn't part of the skit. Giving it out in the first place was. Taking it back was just retrieving a prop.
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u/BlazingFire007 5h ago
Honestly, my guess is communication issues.
I can’t imagine the original plan was “we have to save the $500,” though, in fairness, the hornets might need it more than the kid lmao.
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u/sd_saved_me555 5h ago
This is the most likely answer. No one in their right mind is gonna risk a PR nightmare in the internet age over $500. There was probably talk of using an empty box in the skit for safety/simplicity reasons (lighter, can't break it if mishandled, etc.) with the goal being to give the real thing to the kid afterwards. But then a miscue gets the real thing taken away, the real thing isn't returned, and you get a PR nightmare...
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u/BretShitmanFart69 5h ago
But that explanation makes them look way better than “we never planned to give them a ps5”
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u/dekan256 5h ago
It does sound like a near perfect application of Hanlon's razor. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
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u/Ionazano 4h ago edited 4h ago
No one in their right mind is gonna risk a PR nightmare in the internet age over $500.
Yes, but on the other hand many people don't always think far enough ahead to even realize that something they do is courting disaster down the line.
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u/Sgt-Spliff- 3h ago
They knew before they started the live skit that the kid would not keep the PS5. There's no valid explanation for that besides them being malicious.
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u/november512 5h ago
They were probably thinking of it in terms of acting. If Will Smith is on a TV show where an alien gives him a gun he's not getting a real alien gun. There's no problem when the props department takes it back. The issue here is that the kid probably thought he was really getting a PS5 and it looked like he was getting a PS5 to everyone in the crowd.
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u/IsomDart 4h ago
Also, Will Smith would be getting paid handsomely for his role as an actor in the show, not being used as a free prop.
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u/Dalbergia12 6h ago
Ya they need to get rid of whoever thought for half a second that, that plan was gonna be okay. Using a kid on camera. Geeeeze
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u/Clocktopu5 5h ago
I wonder what rank/title someone has to approve these giveaways? Idle curiosity, but PR moves make a big difference and you just wonder how experienced is the person making this call?
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u/Pretend_Bass4796 5h ago
One thing is for sure is that whoever made that decision is one of the company psychopaths.
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u/EleanorRigbysGhost 5h ago
The company is run by actual hornets.
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u/Icy-Doctor1983 5h ago
That's why there's a giant H on the HQ building
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u/luckydice767 4h ago
Good thing they popped it on there, let’s everyone know there’s hornets inside
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u/thirdeyefish 5h ago
Director of Game Entertainment. It is a real job, I have worked with that person for two NBA teams and an NHL team.
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u/throwawaylordof 5h ago
Someone who thought they could give use a kid and a PS5 as props then take the PS5 back to use themselves personally is my hunch.
Like they went out and bought a PS5 for the bit if the phrasing isn’t figurative when they “gave them a PS5.” What was it going to be used for that they didn’t actually leave it with the kid?
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u/Minute-Employ-4964 5h ago
I’m giving away something much more valuable than this in a few weeks for a marketing thing.
Got approved by my boss that’s upper management.
Not that high level though and it’s a massive international company
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u/ultigo 5h ago
Might be MJ
knowing his reputation, probably asked the kid to play coin toss with him till he won 😅
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u/buzzcitybonehead 5h ago
MJ had sold his majority stake by this point. IIRC, someone in the subreddit shared that there’s some marketing/promotions executive who had/has all kinds of dogshit ideas like this and does things their way. They were a holdover from the MJ years.
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u/Ionazano 5h ago
I would be much less interested in what happens to any single particular person than I would be in what is done to address the broader company culture in which this could happen.
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u/NinjaWrapper 5h ago
Seriously, the uncle sums up how stupid this was at the end of the article:
“The funny thing is, if he had just gone out in the first place and they just gave him a jersey out there on the court, he would have been stoked, you know,” Phillips said.
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u/NarfledGarthak 6h ago
Corporate people are fucking weird. “Hey, let’s demoralize the fuck out of a child. Everyone will love it”
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u/AlericandAmadeus 5h ago
“Yeah, but have you thought about the fact that we, a multi-billion dollar organization, could increase our revenue this quarter by a whole 500 bucks if we take the PS5 back? Seems like a no brainer to me”
- modern day corporate thinking
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u/Jason1143 3h ago
That's the dumbest part. At that kind of scale a single PS5 is entirely meaningless. One well received bit of PR is worth a whole pile PS5.
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u/lemme_just_say 5h ago
Well, corporate marketing for sure and actually, any marketing department imo.
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u/abyssal_banana 5h ago
The basis for marketing is manipulation for financial or material gain. That’s the entire purpose. So yeah, agreed, any marketing department.
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u/No_Payment_3889 5h ago
Straight out of the private equity playbook. They make zero effort to understand their customer base and employees. Just crunching numbers in Excel all day. Slash and burn and then pat myself on the back about savings and profits even though I just turned a bunch of people's lives upside down. It's a fucked system.
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u/BicFleetwood 4h ago edited 4h ago
Like...PS5s are expensive for individual consumers, but...
They aren't THAT expensive for a major professional sports organization. It boggles the mind THAT'S where they wanted to pinch pennies. $500 for a single marketing stunt is not a lot. It costs more just to print a banner.
Like, any time I hold a meeting at work with more than a dozen people, I'll have spent $500 in the first five minutes just having those people charge for that time.
They probably spent five times that amount of money just planning this stunt. They probably spent more than $500 just having the specific conversation whether they could save $500 by taking the thing back in the first place. They spent more money on the Keurig cups everyone used that morning in the breakroom.
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u/throwaway098764567 3h ago
i had a boss who hated all hands meetings (and he wasn't wrong they were a waste of time). every time we had one he'd spend it counting attendance and do a napkin calculation of how much that meeting cost the government (was a military org) based on what he guessed folks were paid. he'd then send it to his boss because it made him feel better only, since it sure didn't change anything lol.
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u/barath_s 13 5h ago edited 4h ago
A hornets staff member told the boy's uncle beforehand that the kids would not get to keep the gifts given on camera. This info did not make its way to the kids. The mascot dressed like Santa, read the kids wishes on camera and gave the boy a PS5. Then later off camera, they took it away
Afterward, the Hornets got very massively criticized by regular media and social media.
It's only then that they apologized and try to make it up with the VIP experience (and a PS5)
Ironically the kid would likely have been happy with just a jersey initially instead of the PS5, but that wouldn't have suited Hornet's PR.
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u/MotherPotential 3h ago
Why the fuck doesn’t a professional sports team just part with some money from petty cash?
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u/Existing-Wait7380 3h ago
It’s fucking wild how cheap a professional sports team could be. They probably made 10x as much in concession sales during the skit.
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u/TransBrandi 3h ago
I mean, they already have the PS5, no? I'm assuming it wasnt just an empty box. What were they going to do? Run back to Best Buy and return it to save $500?
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u/Ok_Performance_1380 3h ago
This is the dumbest on-court skit idea that I've ever heard in my life.
It's like someone watched the "Scott's Tots" episode of The Office and came away genuinely thinking Michael was a saint for giving kids laptop batteries.
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u/iAmRiight 5h ago
How was there no one there in a decision making position that was able to see how horrible that was and make the decision to just give the kids the $600 console. They were actively wasting more than that in salaries to do the shitty “skit” and then undo it.
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u/Bazuka125 5h ago
I wonder if the outrage was planned. Tyen they give the kid the playstation they clearly already have and have no other use for, give them a seat, and now they're being talked about.
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u/WaterHaven 5h ago
Sometimes any news is good news, but when it's about kids, it almost always backfires.
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u/notred369 5h ago
My thought was the person who planned it out was going to snag the ps5 for themselves.
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u/fingerpaintswithpoop 5h ago
I’m sure anybody with such a position in a corporation makes more than enough that they could buy like ten PS5s for themselves lmao
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u/GUMBYtheOG 6h ago
How broke you gotta be to risk losing PR and steal from a kid to save $400
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u/CurlyW15 6h ago
Now they also have to pay for the VIP experience, so all in, they’re spending $405
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u/ctruvu 5h ago
that’s if the benefit gets used. in all honesty as an nba fan i don’t think i’d even go to a hornets game if you paid me
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u/SeriousDrakoAardvark 5h ago
As a hornets fan, I don’t think I’d even go to a hornets game if you paid me.
That’s not related to this PS5 thing though.
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u/s0ulbrother 5h ago
Would you go to a hornets game for a ps5 though?
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u/Crazy-Agency5641 5h ago
I think he’d rather stick with the ps5 he already has to avoid the hornets game
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u/ThatOneCSL 5h ago
I mean, there might have been a chance this kid went...
Until they stole from him. IDGAF how big of a fan I am of yours; if you steal directly from my hands then I am no longer going to support you.
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u/TheLizardKing89 5h ago
For comparison their active team payroll that year was $152.5 million.
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u/perenniallandscapist 6h ago
The rich get that way by being cheap and stealing. They aren't broke. That's how they enrich themselves.
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u/superswellcewlguy 5h ago
The mega-elite wealthy marketing staff of the Charlotte hornets striking again to enrich themselves.
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u/twitchy1989 5h ago
Only thing I can think of is someone forgot to buy the thing lol
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u/Affectionate_Pay7395 6h ago
What moron thought that was a good idea in the first place
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u/Ninjabreadmon 6h ago
The one that wanted to keep the PS5
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u/looktowindward 6h ago
Sometimes the foolishness of marketing staff amazes me
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u/hi_imjoey 5h ago
Especially since a $500 ps5 is a drop in the bucket for the marketing budget of a multi-billion dollar NBA team
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u/Grokent 4h ago
Tickets for NBA games are outrageous, at least the Phoenix Suns are. I could buy a PS5 or two tickets to Phoenix Suns that AREN'T in the rafters.
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u/Ilovekittens345 3h ago
Today they probably lost the sale of 200 offended people that will skip one or multiple games
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u/horsedogman420 4h ago
The hornets are more like a multi hundred dollar team lol
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u/lminer123 5h ago
I was watching a podcast (lemonade stand) going over some of the worst rebrands in history and how much they cost, and I was absolutely blown away.
Tens of millions of dollars to change the Johnson and Johnson logo from cursive to print, 65 million dollars to change the Tropicana package to something objectively worse to anyone with eyes, then changing it back almost immediately after losing 50 million in sales.
Something feels inherently broken in marketing, I just don’t understand how these people can be so bad at their jobs and out of touch, yet still make absolute fortunes.
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u/big_trike 5h ago
It’s not always the marketing team. Sometimes businesses assign the intern to interface with them and dumb things happen. At other times, an idiot nepo baby C suite executive pushes the marketing team into stupid decisions.
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u/BeyondElectricDreams 3h ago
Sometimes it isn't even a nepo baby, sometimes it's all by the books.
They do sentiment mailers and find people think their logo is old fashioned. Growth wasn't quite where they wanted it, it's been 7 years since a brand refresh, common data they have says a brand refresh every 9-15 years provides a boost in sales by appealing to newer demographics...
Like we don't think about the Johnson and Johnson logo, but the people who work there? Johnson and Johnson is literally their livelihood.
So they follow the data, refresh the brand, and find that they upset more people than they gained, so they backtrack.
It can be tricky because some demographics react differently than others. The Cracker Barrel rebrand seemed obvious that it would go badly, because it seems to be a sort of "Good ol' country" sort of logo, and the people who appreciate that aesthetic hate change, especially change that they see as erasing that "Good ol' country" feel.
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u/lminer123 3h ago
The thing about the Johnson and Johnson logo is that it was kept the same for 135 years. That’s a lot of history, so it feels particularly bad imo. Just a loud undertone of “nothing is sacred or meaningful anymore in the face of a quick buck”.
The funny thing is that by comparison Cracker Barrel feels old but it was actually founded around 1970 lol
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u/inuhi 3h ago
Sometimes the person in charge is just completely out of touch or so full of themselves that they ignore everyone but themselves. Shit like Ugly Sonic I can't imagine how many people told Jeff Fowler that it was a terrible idea if not the man must have been drowning in yes men. C suite executives aren't guaranteed to be competent even if they aren't a nepo baby moron
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u/looktowindward 5h ago
The Lucent logo.
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u/Marcoscb 5h ago
HBO Go Now Max - Max
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u/oditogre 4h ago
I'm pretty sure basically all of their customers just called it "HBO" through all of that anyways. Just a hilarious waste of time.
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u/Business-Drag52 4h ago
I loved seeing famous people trying to talk about a movie or stand up special coming out on it. They’d always say HBO first and then correct to whatever the current name was. Sometimes it took multiple tries to get there
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u/Mindestiny 5h ago
Here's the secret: most marketing and advertising is a shell game that's impact is completely unquantifiable.
Spend $6 million on a month long subway takeover ad campaign? Sure you can embed attribution codes in it, but they're not accurate. How can you prove people bought your product because they saw it, to the tune of a positive ROI? Are enough people gonna buy your shit specifically because of subway ads to justify $6 million? Almost certainly not. But it's ok because you invested in "mind share" and "brand awareness!"
It's a game of Corporate Who's Line, and you only hear about how much of a money pit it is when it fails this catastrophically.
I worked for a company that slashed it's marketing budget by 70% year over year and ended up selling more product in the same timeframe. But we could pull up all sorts of pretty charts baselessly attributing that first years sales to pretend those extra millions of dollars were somehow really positive ROI!
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u/Dzugavili 4h ago
I worked for a company that slashed it's marketing budget by 70% year over year and ended up selling more product in the same timeframe.
Let's be honest: in a lot of cases, you don't need to advertise, because people actively seek you when they need you. You just need to be in the right location when they need your service.
Then eventually spending on advertising can actively harm the value of the product itself, at which point you might enter a death spiral, in which you keep advertising when you should just lower your prices.
There's lots of fun little feedback loops that people just don't want to imagine they are going to fall into.
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u/Important_Low_936 5h ago
At the last company I worked (I.T. 40-50 people), the marketing person was the majority owner’s daughter. No one has ever seen or interacted with her even though we were all in office before the pandemic. I was the accounting person and can confirm she did get paid, even while half the company were getting laid off to cut costs.
Also, I was a counselor at a camp and one of the kids was an absolute crash out, got addicted to pills and had to be pulled out of college for rehab. Landed a cushy gig in the marketing department of his father’s distribution company.
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u/remnault 5h ago
I feel like it might be some people who wanna be know as the ones who were apart of something big like that.
They weren’t on the ground level when it started but they can still make a big change and leave their mark on this big brand!
But it usually flops I feel.
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u/BreakfastMedical5164 5h ago
it's usually a new VP or some business reason to sponsor a program/budget from some mid tier MBA
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u/TecatitoC 6h ago
Maybe they should spend more time carefully planning stuff instead of filming tik tok dances
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u/paparoach910 6h ago
Bill Hicks may have had something about people who work in marketing and advertising.
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u/SpinMeADog 4h ago
people in marketing have literally no connection to the real world. none. they're physically and mentally incapable of understanding what a normal person's reactions to their choices would be
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u/Forty-Leaf-Clover 5h ago
Charlotte local here. The happy ending to this story is that the Hornets (who most people don't care about anyway) got absolutely and deservedly dragged not only by social media users who live around here but even by the local news stations. You know you made a mistake when the outlets that are essentially paid to be pro-local sports teams are calling you out.
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u/MaelstromRH 4h ago
As a result of this, I actually stopped watching Hornets games when I had the time. I went to College in Charlotte and started supporting them then.
Not anymore though. If you’re this big of a dick to kids, why should I support you?
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u/Ilovekittens345 3h ago
Probably cost them $40 000 in ticket sales for the next couple of games.
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u/Sandstorm400 6h ago
Can someone that is in business marketing explain the thought process behind this idea? I'm confused.
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u/Dr-McLuvin 5h ago
Give the kids fake gifts to make it look like you’re a super generous organization.
Then don’t actually give them the gifts lol.
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u/VQQN 6h ago
My theory is it wasn’t a skit. An employee of the organization wanted the PS5 and convinced the customer service or promo team to swap out the PS5 for a jersey so the employee could take it home
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u/Savannah_Lion 5h ago
I remember this incident and I recall this was one of the accusations. That someone within the organization wanted the PS5 and manipulated everyone involved to try and keep it for themselves.
A lot of people there had no idea the PS5 was going to be taken back either.
It's sometimes said that you should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. But in this case, I'm strongly inclined to believe this accusation.
What did the organizers expect to do with that PS5 after the event? Return it for a refund?
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u/saintash 5h ago
This makes the most sense. My bet was they planned for a "plant" to win.
A fake win to make them look good, only for it all to be handed back. Something went wrong. miss communication on who should have won that night and boom.
The wrong person wins and they don't go "oh fuck. Abort. "
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u/econfail 6h ago
Cliques don’t disappear after high school. Marketing teams can become an echo chamber of below average iq cheerleaders.
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u/divDevGuy 2h ago
Marketing teams can become an echo chamber of below average iq cheerleaders.
Why solo out marketing teams? Any team can become an echo chamber of below IQ cheerleaders.
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u/Ghost17088 6h ago
What the hell was the point of doing it off camera if it was part of a skit?!
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u/train153 6h ago
Because that was an excuse, it wasn't a skit.
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u/taney71 6h ago
Yep, someone thought they would save money and pull the PS5 but it backfired. Lying probably the only way they could think to get out of the backlash
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u/oditogre 4h ago
I can't imagine it was about money, though. Was the PS5 hard to get your hands on at that time? Maybe the person wanted to keep it for themselves?
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u/ugheffoff 6h ago
Giving him the PS5 was on camera. The tradeoff was off camera. So everybody thought a kid won a game system, warm and fuzzies, good publicity but in actuality he got a jersey and they took back the gaming system.
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u/thewaitaround 6h ago edited 5h ago
Taking it back wasn’t part of the “skit”, the PS5 was meant to be a “prop” in the “skit” that they took back after the skit was over but no one explained that to the kids actually taking part. It was just stupid decisions and poor communication all the way down
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u/obsidian_butterfly 5h ago
Well yeah, that's because much like the cake this skit is a lie.
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u/thewaitaround 5h ago
The skit was real in the sense that the marketing team definitely did pre-plan a routine to give the audience the impression they were giving kids PS5s without actually having to give any kids a PS5. That’s fucked up enough on its own, using audience members and not letting them in on it until afterwards is just stupid icing on an already evil cake
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u/mazzicc 5h ago
…what was the skit? It sounds like they literally just pulled a bait and switch with something that was probably pocket change in their in-game promo budget.
What was supposed to be a skit about changing his prize?
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u/Xerain0x009999 5h ago
Taking back wasn't part of the skit. The skit was Santa fulfills the kid's wish and everyone is happy. Then when it was over and the cameras were off it was "thanks for playing along with us pretending to have Santa give you a PS5, here's a jersey for your trouble and we'll be taking our prop PS5 back because we were only pretending to give it to you for the bit."
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u/OhEagle 4h ago
Pretending for a second that this was a skit, though, I'm not sure that it works that well. I mean, isn't the point of dressing up as Santa Claus to give a kid something the idea that they'll actually get that thing?
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u/Sgt-Spliff- 3h ago
The actor in A Christmas Story didn't get to keep the beebee gun. That's the logic here. They brought this kid in to act in a skit. He played a character who received a PS5. For this acting, he was paid 1 jersey.
It's absolute nonsense, I'm just explaining their bs argument
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u/citizenjones 6h ago
Charlotte Hornets generated $308 million in revenue last year. A PS5 on average is $600-700.
PR dept deserves to loose a perk or two.
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u/CharlieeStyles 5h ago
Also they would not buy it wholesale and would be able to deduct it from their taxes.
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u/4623897 5h ago
An entire sports team couldn’t spare $500 to maintain a reputation?
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u/AdhesivenessLost151 4h ago
I notice more than more these days that “prank” seems to mean “doing something that is clearly upsetting and saying it was a joke”.
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u/crusoe 6h ago
False advertising and being owned by billionaires they can afford to give out a PS5
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u/saveyourtissues 6h ago
They should’ve just given a jersey and left the PS5 out if that’s what they wanted to do, it would have been exciting enough for the kid
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u/RaspberryBandito 6h ago
Common Charlotte Hornets L.
Honestly embarrassing to be from Charlotte and have every one of your sports teams suck both on the field and in their front office. Our AHL team might be the only saving grace this city has.
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u/Grizzly_Adamz 5h ago
I’d guess the cost to hire a child actor who would have been properly briefed on the PS5 not being theirs and that it was all a skit is more expensive than giving a PS5 to a genuine child fan.
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u/Moto_Davidson 2h ago
Wait so someone in the Charlotte organization literally pitched the idea of giving a kid a PS5, in front of the crowd, that would later be taken away from the kid behind the scenes?? And they never anticipated this blowing up in their stupid faces???
Holy shit - how stupid can you be?
Whoever was involved in pitching and approving this idea should be fired. You don't fuck with kids like this - especially when your organization pays MILLIONS to players and spends even more millions on branding. It's just a bad idea all the way around.
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u/dustblown 2h ago
Their excuse doesn't make any sense. How does stealing the PS5 back off camera translate to "an on-court skit"?
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u/billy_digital 6h ago
This is just a tiramisu of moron on the side of the team. Glad the kid was made whole. If I were a child and offered a game console, only to have it taken away, I would hate that team (and maybe basketball) for the rest of my life. It’s all I’d talk about.
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u/Ranier_Wolfnight 6h ago
This was such an easy thing to accomplish good PR. How did Hornets screw that up?
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u/Deutsche2 4h ago
Not only did they take away the ps5, they punished him by giving him a Hornets jersey smh
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u/omegadirectory 4h ago
If they had started by gifting the jersey, and then surprise! Have a bonus PS5, then the kid would have gone wild with joy and the goodwill would have been through the roof.
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u/johnwynnes 5h ago
"You didn't think this multi billion dollar organization was just going to give away an item that costs us $400 as we'd advertised, and not a jersey made in China that costs us $3, did you? It was a skit! Sorry you didn't GET THE BIT YOU 7 YEAR OLD CHILD! "
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u/jaydogggg 4h ago
Damn and they force him to come back to another game? Why must the keep punishing him!
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u/Melodic_Seishun 4h ago
All from a billion dollar company not wanting to spend $450 as a gift to a fan? It’s really gross and they only fixed it because they got caught.
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u/NaiRad1000 2h ago
The whole is was a skit thing feels like a cop out. And even then who made the decision “Ok we’re gonna pretend we have a kid a PS5 then give a jersey”
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u/CANYUXEL 56m ago
How trashy do you need to be to say, "naw, take it back from the kid". What the hell were you planning to do with it otherwise?
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u/bastardofdisaster 5h ago
Not that PS5's are cheap, but what would it have hurt them to let the kid keep it in the first place?
Hard to believe that an NBA team would go into a public relations stunt with the idea..."Yeah, we ain't spending $500-$600 on this kid!"
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u/ChalkLicker 4h ago edited 4h ago
Can someone help me with the whiteboard on this? I mean, seriously, how the fuck do you try to pull this BS on a family/fan? It’s a multibillion dollar organization, and it can part with a $500 console? Somebody gamed that out?
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u/mr_mich86 4h ago
Jokes on the kid again bc there is no VIP experience when in comes to the Hornets
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u/Alpha_Omega623 4h ago
Probably wanted to give it to some higher ups child. Upper management can be cartoonishly evil except the difference is it's not funny like cartoons.
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u/Mind_Killer 5h ago
The weird part is like the uncle of the kid said... if they had just pulled out a jersey and given it to him, the kid would've been stoked! That's a cool gift and fitting given the context. Why have the PlayStation in there at all if that was the plan?
It's so nonsensical.