When greed trumps publicity

I'm sorry that the modern obsession with 'bling' and greed for new toys has ruined a promotion for a new cellphone.  The BBC reports:

Twenty people were injured, with seven sent to hospital, when a promotional stunt in Seoul for LG's G2 smartphone went wrong, the company has said.

LG has cancelled a series of events promoting the handset as a result of the incident in Seoul on Friday.

. . .

LG released 100 helium balloons, each with a free smartphone voucher, at the so-called G in the Cloud event, which took place in an outdoor park in the South Korean capital city.

The phones, which sell for KRW 950,000 in South Korea ($851), would be given to people in possession of the voucher, the company said.

Customers arrived with BB guns to shoot down the balloons and surged forward when they were released.

One person carried a pointed staff to the event.

One regional TV channel has dubbed the scrum "World War G" - a comparison to the film World War Z in which zombies scramble over each other to climb over a wall.

There's more at the link.

I know some will say, "Well, what did LG expect?"  I don't see it that way.  I was raised in an earlier, perhaps more civilized era, where such behavior would have earned me an instant thrashing from one or both parents, and where my peers were equally strictly disciplined by their parents.  We'd never have dreamed of behaving like that!  Scenes like this, or near-riots when new models of basketball shoes are released in the USA, would have had my parents snorting in disgusted disbelief, and reaching for horsewhips (or something stouter) to teach those involved a lesson!

I think we're much poorer as a society for allowing such attitudes to take root and grow.  How companies are going to take them into account in their promotions . . . that, I don't know.

Peter