A baseball game marriage proposal rejection that went viral earlier this week garnered lots of YouTube views for a clip featuring a man being turned down by a woman during a very public “will you marry me?”… but the compelling video was really an attention grab stunt .
The marriage proposal rejection video came from a minor league team game in Connecticut last week. The Double-A New Britain Rock Cats, an affiliate of the Minnesota Twins, have since confirmed that no actual feelings were harmed in the making of the fake proposal video, which starred two team employees.
In the clip, a man named David asks a woman named Jessica to marry him on the field, while an announcer pressures the woman to answer.
After he pops the question, she says, “David… I can’t! I’m sorry, I can’t…” and flees the field as David tellingly laughs. As it turns out, the stunt was cooked up and posted by Sports Zone, and president of marketing Mike Abramson explained :
“We all thought it was a fun idea and was sort of in line with the wacky, edgy things we do to get people interested, to stay relevant… I did think most people in the audience believed it was fake. The acting, it could have been better, but ultimately we weren’t trying to hurt anyone or fool anyone.”
Except, you know, they presented the clip as a real rejected marriage proposal, so that is kind of fooling people.
ESPN quotes Abramson as saying :
“After watching a public proposal, we talked about what would happen if the answer were `no,’ and how that might affect a crowd and those viewing it after on video… We worked with two of our staff on the skit and executed a digital strategy to set the video on a viral path; we could not be more pleased with the outcome.”
He added:
“This endeavor was intended to entertain and remind fans you never know what you’re going to see at a Rock Cats game.”
Did you fall for the fake marriage proposal rejection when you first saw it, or did the bad acting give away the game? Does faking out fans and customers make you think less of a brand?
