Appliance giant KitchenAid finds itself in major trouble today for an inappropriate Tweet sent out on the company’s official account.
A tweet poking fun at President Barack Obama’s late grandmother — posted on KitchenAid’s official U.S. account — caught the eye of many Twitter users Wednesday night during the presidential debate.
“Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’. #nbcpolitics,” @KitchenAidUSA posted to 24,000 followers before quickly deleting the tweet.
Obama had mentioned his grandmother, Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham, during the debate. She died Nov. 2, 2008, just before Obama was elected president.
According to the Mashable site, KitchenAid immediately issued an apology.
KitchenAid’s Cynthia Soledad told Mashable in an email:
“During the debate tonight, a member of our Twitter team mistakenly posted an offensive tweet from the KitchenAid handle instead of a personal handle. The tasteless joke in no way represents our values at KitchenAid, and that person won’t be tweeting for us anymore. That said, I lead the KitchenAid brand, and I take responsibility for the whole team. I am deeply sorry to President Obama, his family, and the Twitter community for this careless error. Thanks for hearing me out.”
The PR question remains: How does a KitchenAid person accidentally post on the company site versus his own site? Don’t all Tweet have to be approved by someone on the corporate site before they are issued?
It is a mistake that should never have happened and the person responsible should be given his/her walking papers.
THESE ARE EXPERTS
Mistakes happen, for sure. It would be easy to accidentally tweet when you have more than one account and only use one or two computers.
That being said: This person is supposed to be an EXPERT in that particular area! Mistakes like this should not happen to a person in this position.
Their job should rightly be in jeopardy.
SILENCE IS GOLDEN
Hey, I really appreciate the KitchenAid lady taking corporate responsibility for the whole affair, even though she wasn’t the one who “accidentally” sent the Tweet. That’s pretty rare in this day and age. But once again, here we have a clear case of someone who thinks he/she is clever and/or funny when complete silence would have been the better course of action.
FIRED!
Just think of THE IDIOTS running this company, making millions, and acting like JERKS, The should be FIRED… NO UNEMPLOYMENT either !
FIRED!
The person who sent out the tweet should be fired, not for what was said, but for using the corporate twitter account to say it.
UNDER 25-SOMETHING…
Only an inexperience and uneducated under 25-something could have written this. And John is right, the manager of communications at Kitchen Aid responsible for their Twitter account needs to go too.