SOCIAL FAUX PAS EXAMPLES FULL

Unfortunately, this polite attempt to educate the public about Gaelic tradition failed to stem the tide of outrage in cyberspace. So the planning team decided to say what we meant: ‘fun.’ That’s the spirit we intended and the spirit in which we hope ornament buyers will take it. Today it has multiple meanings, which we thought could leave our intent open to misinterpretation. When the lyrics to ‘Deck the Halls’ were translated from Gaelic and published in English back in the 1800s, the word ‘gay’ meant festive or merry. In response, Hallmark issued this statement: The comments accused the company of everything from censorship to homophobia. The giant greeting card business created and distributed a Christmas tree ornament with these words printed on front: “Don we now our fun apparel” (an obviously edited version of the line from a famous Christmas carol, “Don we now our gay apparel”).Īs Melissa Carter at The Georgia Voice points outĪfter the ornament was released, the Hallmark Facebook page was flooded with complaints. Hallmark also ran into social media trouble in 2013. The overall effect of this seemingly automated response was that of a large, insensitive company disseminating the same, blanket message over and over again, rather than acknowledging consumer complaints with a more heartfelt response. Kmart is staffing w/teams & seasonal associates when possible, giving them opportunity to make extra money during holiday. Instead of recognizing the firestorm it had created, Kmart responded to more than 100 such messages with the same “robotic” response:

Typical crap opening for 41 hours straight they are a dying company so they are taking full advantage of black Friday.

In 2013, Kmart announced its stores would be open on Thanksgiving Day, offering discount-hungry consumers plenty of extra hours to buy gifts for Christmas.īut the mega-retailer was caught flat-footed by indignant tweets concerning the burden these extra hours placed on Kmart employees, taken away from their families on this family-focused holiday. No business sets out to commit a social media faux pas-especially during the holiday season.īut as the following examples illustrate, even big brands fall prey to social media missteps that cost them some holiday goodwill, and even worse, paying customers.

SOCIAL FAUX PAS EXAMPLES FULL

Social faux pas examples