Chase has hired a fleet of food trucks to provide sustenance to Apple fanbois waiting in line for the new new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models.
Chase is one the five US banks lined up by Apple as partners for its new NFC payment service. With big queues forming outside Apple stores across the US in anticipation of the launch, Chase has used all of its marketing smarts to make sure that its role in the release is not overlooked.
The bank's tweet stream has undergone a complete Apple makeover, with a new masthead advertising 'The new way to pay' and retweeting posts from grateful customers as they snap up the free treats on offer under the hashtag #feedtheline.
The official Chase twitter account also got in on the act, posting a photo of Apple chief Tim Cook mobbed by TV cameras outside the firm's Palo Alto.
Inevitably, the ploy generated a bit of a backlash among some Twitter users, who felt that Chase's marketing dollars could have been better spent to #feedthehomeless:
Undeterred, MasterCard has followed Chase into the breach, handing out 1000 cupcakes to NYers at the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue & 14th Street locations as a Priceless Surprise, followed by 500 battery back-up phone chargers on day two. The latter could come in handy to prevent embarrassment at the checkout for wallet-less Apple Pay users, given the iPhone's famously short battery life.