In another case of “hey, you could really use a person of color on your staff,” Krispy Kreme donuts in the UK found themselves in hot water after a marketing campaign for Krispy Kreme Klub which they shortened to KKK. The program was part of a weeklong event for children on break from school. But they apologized quickly and sounded like the FBI in doing so:
“Krispy Kreme apologizes unreservedly for the inappropriate name of a customer promotion at one of our stores,” said the spokeswoman. “The promotion was never intended to cause offense. All material has been withdrawn, and an internal investigation is currently under way.”
Good thing they apologized because their donuts are delicious.
Team Blackness also discussed easy peasy tattoo removal, a California man who cried police brutality when he actually punched himself in the face, and AIDS has become the top killer of adolescents in Africa.
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Mnemosyne (iPhone)
The one defense I’ll give them is that the KKK was a US-only phenomenon, so those initials wouldn’t automatically raise the same alarm bells in the UK as they would in the US. Still a pretty embarrassing own goal, though.
boatboy_srq
Krispy Kreme. Based in Winston-Salem, NC. They had to know this wouldn’t end well.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): KKK may be a majority-US phenomenon, but a good portion of the rest of the planet is aware of the Klan – enough to make some noise about a misstep like this. OTOH, my guess is the Klan is one of those “negative” things expunged from the TX schoolbooks.
Nick
I’m fairly sympathetic to this kind of screw-up — why should other countries be sensitive to our atrocities? I doubt we vet our ad campaigns to make sure they don’t accidentally have the initials of bigoted organizations in Australia or Italy. Insisting on the universality of our bad guys is another form of American exceptionalism.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@boatboy_srq:
As far as I’ve heard, this was a local franchise in the UK making the decision. Sure, they’ve probably heard of the KKK. One or two of them probably saw “Django Unchained” or “O Brother Where Art Thou.”
But the KKK doesn’t have the same deep cultural significance in the UK that it does in the US, so I can see how local UK franchise could fuck up that way. As the cliche says, we are two peoples separated by a common language.
boatboy_srq
@Nick: If this were an enterprise not headquartered in the Deep South, I’d agree. Though it’s quite possible that some UK junior exec thought this up as something cutesy and the biggest complaints came not from UK consumers but corporate HQ. There’s also the insanely offensive connotation to the acronym that resonates outside US cultural spheres that doesn’t in the Chevy Nova (“no va” doesn’t sell in Latin America) or the Alfa 164 (Chinese numerology made that “all the way to death” in Hong Kong, so Alfa had to rebadge those cars).
MazeDancer
They’re British, but it’s still absurd.
Every name – and especially every acronym – used for products and promotions if created by a reliable ad agency or consultant automatically gets Google searched. For many reasons, not the least of which it prevents self-inflicted wounds like this.
John
How many Americans do you think would be up in arms if some company created a marketing campaign with the initials BNP? My guess is somewhere in the single digits.
Americans are waaaaaay too self-absorbed.
Tree With Water
I can see that occurring overseas. While even/especially the uneducated here in the states are universally familiar with the import of those three, simple letters KKK, it’s a bit parochial to hold damn foreigners to our high bar of cultural vernacular.
Paul in KY
I have a cousin who used a power sander to remove a tattoo of an old flame. Still has a mark (of course), but no name remains.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@John:
I have seen quite a few Americans get up in arms when someone orders a “black and tan” in a bar because it’s a reference to the British occupation of Ireland. I even had someone here scold me for posting a recipe for Black and Tan Macaroni and Cheese. So it does occasionally happen.
Roger Moore
@boatboy_srq:
I bet not. I would assume Texas’s school books follow the Lost Cause version of history, which would treat the Klan as a natural part of the South’s reaction to scalawags and carpetbaggers.
Mike J
I will give them credit for this: “Krispy Kreme apologizes unreservedly for the inappropriate name of a customer promotion at one of our stores,”
They didn’t say, “we’re sorry if anybody was offended.” They didn’t complain about PC thugs victimizing the poor helpless corporation. They admitted they made a mistake and they made an actual apology. They did exactly what decent people would do when they screwed up.
Pity that it’s so rare that it’s notable.
Roger Moore
@boatboy_srq:
You might want to check Snopes about that one.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I hope you told them to go pound sand.
mai naem mobile
I lived in the UK for a few years. The racist group in the UK group is called the National Front. They do the skinhead stuff but they really don’t measure up to KKK standards. I think if you used National Front for something in this country people probably wouldn’t think anything of it. Granted I was young but I don’t believe I was aware of the KKK until I came here.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: Thanks for that link.
Mike G
It doesn’t have the same resonance abroad but people in other Western countries know what the KKK is from American TV and movies. It’s probably one of most recognized historical symbols of the South internationally.
Krispy Kreme is a corporation based in the US South, so I imagine some smart-ass in their UK marketing department thought it would be clever to make a joke playing on a symbol of that region that would be recognized in UK. I’m surprised they didn’t have at least one American staffer there to put the brakes on it.
These kind of cross-cultural conflicts happen a lot in the age of globalization. There used to be a popular brand of toothpaste in Asia called “Darkie” with a picture of Al Jolson on it, until the maker was bought by a US company and they quickly changed the name. And there was an importer of German-made gas heaters in Taiwan using a cartoon Hitler in their ads (“A symbol of strength”, they said) until the German embassy kicked up a stink.
Origuy
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): The Black and Tans was the nickname for a reserve force of British constables formed to keep order during the Irish War of Independence. They were particularly brutal, being made up of WWI veterans with little police training. You could probably get away with ordering a Black and Tan in a Prot bar in Northern Ireland, but not in the Republic.
Don’t order an “Irish Car Bomb” in Ireland, either.
I really don’t think the local Krispy Kreme people in the UK had any idea about the significance of KKK to Americans. The sign has the name “Hull” on it, so it was a local promotion.
FridayNext
A lot of people are offering qualified defenses of this store because it is in the UK. Well, possibly. But it seems to me if you are a company with the initials KK, it would be standard corporate policy to NEVER use another word with a K in anything ever. I have worked in food franchises before as well as for companies with brands to protect and if it’s your job to design or place ads, you are typically given a two inch thick binder of regulations of how to use the logo, what colors you have to use and cannot use, and even where you are allowed to place ads, how they should look, what phrases you can use, what the product must look like, etc etc. It’s typically mind-numbingly detailed and if Krispy Kreme didn’t give instructions to never use a third “k” word, let alone as initials, they really should have, and I suspect they will now.
Sure it’s the UK, but it is a US company from the South and in the internet age, the corporate headquarters has to be more aware of such things, and hiring more black people in head offices would likely help.
ETA: BTW, wasn’t this on the Simpsons? Krusty’s Kartoon Kavalcade?
gvg
Companies usually DO look out for cultural mistakes when they sell in other countries. Too many not very funny stories out there. I guess I can see it since it was a little local promotion although if I was a big shot in Krispy Kreme I would be looking for a not very funny prankster in either KK or the ad company.
I had not known about the Black and Tan connotation and I’m nominally of Irish descent. I thought they were a kind of hound dog. I guess I pay more attention to pets than Irish history.
NCSteve
@boatboy_srq: If corporate in Winston Salem had had a clue this was coming, they would have squelched it like a fat ass sitting on a jelly doughnut. If there’s one thing Krispy Kreme’s top marketing executives are constantly aware of it’s that they’re constantly one “K” away from a public relations disaster.
Points are lost for failure to transmit that fact to their overseas operations, however.
Alien_radio
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Krusty_Komedy_Klassics
ThresherK
@Alien_radio: Thankyouthankyouthankyou. I was waiting for someone to bring that up.
ThresherK
@Alien_radio: One good TVTropes turn:
Well, I’ll let you finish the thought.
kc
@Betty Cracker:
*Googles to see if the phrase “pound sand” might offend anyone*
ShadeTail
I can only assume this is sarcasm, because their donuts are utter shit.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Honest to Goddess, earlier today I saw a truck for an exterminator company painted with the slogan “We are the final solution.”
WTF?