Pizza Hut offers gift cards to recipients of lame gifts

Pizza Hut is offering disappointed Christmas celebrants the chance to receive a company gift card to soothe the sting of inferior presents.

Through what it’s calling a gift exchange, the pizza purveyor is giving a gift card to the first 100 people to tweet photos of their offending presents to @PizzaHut using the hashtag #PizzaHutExchange or #PHXchange.

The gift card is good for a $10 Any Pizza, which costs just $10 regardless of size or toppings. Only people in the contiguous U.S. are eligible to participate.

Of course, the stunt isn’t a true exchange: Customers don’t actually have to send Pizza Hut their unwanted presents. Undesirable gifts already tweeted in include toothpaste, hairbrushes, mugs, a jar of “gross candies� and a hat modeled after a turkey can keep their unfortunate gifts.

The pizza chain has had an eventful year full of marketing gimmicks – some less than successful.

In the heat of the presidential campaign in October, Pizza Hut offered free pizza for life – or $15,600 – to anyone who would ask President Obama or Mitt Romney during a town hall debate about his preferred meat topping.

After the “sausage or pepperoni� ploy was panned as disrespectful, Pizza Hut moved the promotion online.

The company also caused a stir when it launched a cheeseburger-crusted pizza in the Middle East during the spring.

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