Kenneth Cole steps in it again with insensitive Tweet
Apparently, the folks in charge of Kenneth Cole’s Twitter account haven’t learned much from their last go-round of reputation damaging social media humiliation, because they’ve done it again! A Tweet that went out earlier yesterday encouraged shoppers to disregard the current issues in Syria and get out and buy some new shoes. Because up to date footwear is much more important than the issue of silly war!
It didn’t take long for outraged followers to start commenting in droves, letting the brand know in no uncertain terms that mocking war to promote fashion is not a great way to increase sales. Unless they’re thinking of sending those loafers to our troops, I think they’re probably regretting this one. [highlight color=”yellow”]Sure, the brand is in the news, but for all of the mentions I’ve looked at today, I have yet to see an image of any of the aforementioned footwear they were attempting to draw attention to.[/highlight]
This isn’t the first time the brand has put their foot in it, so to speak. Several years ago, they hijacked the #Cairo hashtag to make a joke about millions being in uproar, stating that they’d heard Cole’s new spring line was out. Immediate uproar caused the brand to remove the Tweet and issue a public apology. Apparently, the brand has a short memory. Just two years later, and they’re already mocking war again. Can’t they come up with a fresh, new way to incite rage from the general public?
One case of bad judgment, most reasonable consumers are willing to overlook. Two? We’re starting to see a pattern. With many citizens that have loved ones in the military, this one these two social media snafus just hit too close to home. What do you think? Will the brand come back from this, or have they done irreparable damage to their reputation?
It’s a very good chance that they saw the pub they got from the Cairo tweet and thought “Hey, any mentions are good mentions” or “Edgy is the brand identity”, so purposefully did this one.
Agreed. They really couldn’t be so dense to ‘accidentally’ do something like this twice, right? I think edgy and daft are two totally different things. Maybe they didn’t get the memo.