It was honestly inevitable that someone, somewhere, would accidentally tweet something horrible about the presidential debate from their company’s official Twitter account. KitchenAid, however, was so far down that list that their sudden faux pas was most unexpected. Obviously thinking that they were on their personal Twitter handle, a member of KitchenAid’s Twitter team joked that Obama’s grandma, Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham, died just before he took office because she knew how terrible it’d be. Stay classy, people.
According to their profile, nobody knows the kitchen like KitchenAid, but it looks like both the political arena and the fine points of Twitter usage are beyond their scope. In all fairness, they almost immediately initiated damage control proceedings, with an apology and official outreach to folks talking about the misstep. Also, the employee that sent the errant tweet “won’t be tweeting for [them] anymore,” so maybe someone got fired.
Cynthia Soledad, identifying as the head of the KitchenAid brand, has been the one trying to clean up this mess. She’s been apologizing to anyone that might hear her out, though the story’s more or less the exact same that’s been posted to Twitter. Here’s a snippet from Soledad’s email to Mashable:
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.
On the other hand, both Cuisinart and Breville have yet to capitalize on this golden opportunity, so maybe the world of kitchen appliances isn’t as cutthroat as we once suspected.
(@KitchenAidUSA via Mashable)
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Published: Oct 4, 2012 08:35 am