They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, which is certainly what LG will hoping after this weekend’s product launch
What do you get when you promise free smartphones to people and then give them a load of weapons? Publicity, that’s what, but not necessarily good publicity.
LG made that mistake this week when they released hundreds of balloons, with coupons attached to 100 of them that people could redeem for a free G2 handset, the company’s latest smartphone.
LG used their social media presence to encourage people to attend and do their best to catch the balloons any way they could. A few people showed up with very inventive ways of getting their hands on the vouchers, from the fairly safe option of a butterfly net, to the more extreme option where one woman brought a spear and several people were packing air rifles. Our Korean is rusty, but you can check out the footage from this news report, with the scrum breaking out at about the 1:45 mark.
http://youtu.be/AWewOTjaef8
In the resulting schemozzle at the event in Seoul, apparently 20 people were injured, and while there’s no info on how bad the injuries are as yet, LG have agreed to foot the bill for any treatments that people needed afterwards. Still, we know now about the G2 being launched, where we might have missed it before hand. Job done on the PR front, it has to be said.
Hat-tip to the lads at Mashable
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