Good or Bad Promotion?

Business Pundit: 23-cent Pizzas… Are you kidding me? You can’t even get a White Castle hamburger for that. However, yesterday in Ohio 86 Papa John’s Pizza stores decided to sell 23-cent pizzas as a truce after they agreed to offer a franchise in Washington D.C. t-shirts calling LeBron James a “CRYBABY.” This was in response to the Cleveland Cavaliers star complaining about hard fouls during a NBA playoff series that was with the Washington Wizards.
The idea of the 23-cent pizza was a way to make up with the Cleveland area fans and honor James by selling pizza for the same price as LaBron’s jersey number, 23. Papa John’s planned on selling more the 75,000 pizzas.
The promotion had crowds standing for hours in extremely long lines waiting for the 23-cent pepperoni pizza. While everything went off without a lot of pandemonium, there were scores of complaints about the wait and line cutting.
The good that came out of this promotion is that all the money went to the LaBron James Family Foundation.
What are your thoughts?
Do you think this was a good idea?
Do you think Papa John’s saved face or were people just taking advantage of a deal?
In your opinion, will this charade have any long effect for Papa John’s?
Was this just another marketing gimmick based on controversy?
23-Cent Pizza: Good Idea or Bad Promotion? [Business Pundit]