Inviting followers on Twitter to "show us what makes you proud to be British" as part of a diamond jubilee promotion was a good idea however with an error in execution it became a PR disaster.
"Right now someone in Starbucks Ireland is wishing there was a Twitter version of the memory wipe thing from Men In Black," was just one of the responses tweeted soon after.
One follower of the Starbucks Ireland account (@Starbucks.IE), Fergus McNally, commented: "the ie stands for Ireland, awaiting the apology before I visit your stores again!!"
An apology did come, hours after the mistake has been made, with the Starbucks Ireland account telling followers: "We erroneously posted to our Irish Twitter page meaning to post to the UK only. Customers in Ireland: We're sorry."
The company later followed up by issuing a statement saying: "First and foremost we apologise to our Irish customers for the mistake made on Twitter this afternoon. "The tweet, which was only meant to be sent to our British Twitter followers as part of the diamond jubilee celebrations, was erroneously posted to our Irish Twitter page. "We apologise to all our customers and followers on Twitter in Ireland and hope that they will forgive our mistake."
The error comes months after another global brand, Nike, found itself on the back foot after falling foul of sensitivities over Irish history.
The sportswear giant said no offence was intended after issuing a St Patrick's Day-themed shoe which raised memories of a British paramilitary unit which gained notoriety during the Irish war of independence.
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The Nike thing reminds me of UPS showing the Christian Laetner Duke shot in their commercial during the NCAA tournament this year when Kentucky was favorited to win.
ReplyDeleteThese aren't very derogatory, and they're really just honest mistakes. The only problem is that there are people out there that take it personally and fan the flames.
We may just be too hard on corporations when it comes to sensitivity. Our society seemed much more durable and tenacious back in the early 1900s when people were less sensitive. We've lost our sense of importance and grandjeur. Once upon a time we were outraged because of the British taxing us and ruling us - the result was the American Revolution. Today we're outraged because someone called us British, and the result is we share our butt-hurt on Facebook.
I'm ashamed of people lol
Nice advertisement for your services. Hope you hijack a Bieber story next, just for the traffic.
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