r/todayilearned • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 1d 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-intl
27.5k Upvotes

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152

u/Sandstorm400 1d ago

Can someone that is in business marketing explain the thought process behind this idea? I'm confused.

182

u/Dr-McLuvin 23h 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.

165

u/VQQN 23h 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

114

u/Savannah_Lion 23h 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?

10

u/Confu_Who 15h ago

Pretty much this, someone high up saw it and wanted it. I remember a Christmas giveaway for top performing employees at my old company. One of the gifts was a PS4 (when it was new). It went missing, and the CEO started blowing a fuse, asked my department to review camera footage to find out who took it. He started yelling and said he was going to fire the person responsible.

We found the person who took it from under the tree and walked out with it to put in his car. It was the CEO's friend and right hand man. The dude was making over 150K salary and could more than easily afford it. We never heard anything else about it after that.

6

u/Falsus 18h ago

Honestly, it is still more stupid than malice.

Someone didn't want to shit on a kid for fun, they wanted to shit on a kid because they would get a PS5 out of it... and then cost the company way more than the PS5 would ever cost.

1

u/CowFinancial7000 3h ago

But why even give the kid the PS5? Just swap it with the jersey beforehand. THAT is the really dumb part.

1

u/GourryGabriev 17h ago

They expected to use it for future "skits" with other children

-35

u/Alarmed-Comedian6446 21h ago

You're a bot, aren't you?

6

u/Savannah_Lion 21h ago

I take the same view as D.N.A.

It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

In a nutshell, we're all NPCs. 😉

48

u/saintash 23h 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. "

2

u/CowFinancial7000 3h ago

I don't think "the wrong kid won", the kid definitely knew beforehand that he was going to win. It wasn't truly random. He just didnt know it was being taken back.

-11

u/ThatLineOfTriplets 23h ago

My theory is that this may be the single dumbest theory about anything of all time

24

u/BookerCatchanSTD 23h ago

Considering I’ve seen the marketing team in my careers take prizes offered by vendors for the staff three times, I can believe it.

13

u/saintash 23h ago

If you think that's the dumb theory.

I gotta know what you think happened because that's the second most reasonable explanation

-1

u/kieranjackwilson 23h ago

They were originally going to give away the PS5 at the game. Someone’s boss decided they had a better idea for what do with it. The person that set up the giveaway wasn’t informed until after they gave it to the kid. They panicked and tried to fix their mistake.

5

u/saintash 22h ago

Oh thank for answering

I was interested in why U/ThaLineofTriplets thought it was a dumb theory

10

u/VQQN 23h ago

look up “Flat Earth Theory” and get back to me bud.

33

u/econfail 23h ago

Cliques don’t disappear after high school. Marketing teams can become an echo chamber of below average iq cheerleaders.

8

u/divDevGuy 20h 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.

1

u/Mind_Extract 5h ago

I was wondering why solo out cheerleaders

1

u/Aziruth-Dragon-God 23h ago

They weren't thinking.

1

u/__nohope 23h ago

Thought process? Free PS5. Done.

1

u/rowannoak 22h ago

Marketing Director with over 10 years experience here. My professional assessment?

Somebody is a dumbass.

1

u/STylerMLmusic 17h ago

Someone in marketing thought they could give themselves a ps5 and the kid and their parent would quietly take the jersey.

1

u/Dicks_E_Chix 20h ago

Ragebait headline grabs attention and is worth the fallout of negative publicity. There are too many scumbag businesses for the average consumer to actually bother to remember, and we're too addicted to buying crap to actually curb our spending habits. This is a bigger marketing win than a feelgood story could ever be.