SALT LAKE CITY — Take note: The Utah Jazz evidently need a new hashtag.
The team’s long-used hashtag — #TakeNote — was used by Apple CEO Tim Cook in a tweet on Tuesday, accompanied by an Apple logo emoji. It raises questions about how the phrase will be used in the team’s marketing plans going forward.
“That was weird. I saw that when you all did,” Jazz owner Ryan Smith said Tuesday at a Salt Lake City news conference unrelated to hashtag matters. “Got to look into it.”
Cook and Smith are friends; Cook has even sat courtside with Smith for at least one Jazz game.
Apple Inc. unveiled the latest innovations with its iPad and Apple TV products on Tuesday, and Cook’s early morning tweet with the hashtag and a short video that also made use of the “Take Note” phrase was basically the kickoff to his company’s announcements.
The Jazz have “#TakeNote” on multiple displays in their arena, plus they have used it on merchandise. The team started using the hashtag in 2016. They went away from using it briefly and began using it again in 2019.
And just last week, the Jazz announced a partnership with Utah-based company Chatbooks — including a promotion where Chatbooks would “display a collage of fans’ social media photos” on the video boards hanging over center court.
The plan was to tell fans to post photos on social media with the #TakeNote hashtag to have them considered for those collages.