AKB48, a popular girl idol group in Japan, sold special event tickets under a misleading name, leading to backlash from fans. Selling under the name "Date Tickets," the tickets would actually allow the ticket holder to watch an AKB48 concert in the presence of 3 AKB48 members... as well as the 99 other ticket holders, which is most definitely less than a real date.
As a point of marketing, "date" is an extremely powerful word. To be able to enjoy a date with an idol you stan is pure fantasy. To sell that fantasy is to make a lot of money. Marketing is not always truthful--how many times has there been a beautiful advertisement for a product that is actually not as nice? "Date" is a pretty word to pull in the interest of idol fanboys; catchy marketing gets money, and bad marketing loses it. Had the package been marketed from the start as the "Let's Cheer on the Performing Members with the Other Members" package from the beginning, there would likely have been less interest in purchase.
That being said, idol fan culture seems almost cultish. Middle-aged men who know all the fan chants for the shows, who spend the time and money to go to meet and greet events just to spend a few seconds holding a younger teenager's hand: the image of such a fan is a little bit creepy considering the fans' ages compared to the idols'. The documentary Tokyo Idolsalso considers male fan idols as those who want to support the dreams of idols instead of a perverted fixation. Idols fans want to support their favorite girl financially, but some items or packages must be more successful than others.
For example, packages that allow the purchaser more time with the idol is likely to be more popular, as is anything with the label of "limited edition." From a business standpoint, these are the type of marketing techniques used to increase sales off of idol presence. In the most coldly financial sense, idols are a vector of marketing used to draw in more cash flow, benefiting off of their youth, beauty, and relative "purity." That is not to say that idols don't help their fans emotionally or otherwise; those in the documentary Tokyo Idolsoften referenced how the idol's smiles and presence made them feel better after a long day of work or about their life in general. However, there is something darkly to the side of idol culture that would allow an agency to sell the time of young girl's off as time meant for a lover--especially if she herself is not allowed to have one by contract.
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