Benton Harbor residents march past Whirlpool offices in protest of the Senior PGA sponsored by Whirlpool and Kitchen Aid, on May 26, 12.
- KitchenAid tweet cites Obama’s grandmother’s death three days before 2008 election
- Benton Harbor residents have been boycotting Whirlpool/KitchenAid for years for destroying their city.
- VOTE NO ON PROPOSAL 1 TO REPEAL PUBLIC ACT 4 NOV. 6, 2012.
Part of rally against PA 4/Whirlpool takeover of Benton Harbor in 2011.
VOD: the story below concludes that a so-called “gaffe” by a KitchenAid employee won’t do permanent damage to Whirlpool’s KitchenAid brand.
However, it fails to note that the people of Benton Harbor, Michigan, home to Whirlpool’s world headquarters is, are BOYCOTTING WHIRLPOOL due to the damage it has done to their 96 percent Black city, with the country’s highest poverty rate.
Rev. Edward Pinkney (center) wears shirt denouncing Whirlpool and KitchenAid for “crimes against humanity.” Detroiters Cecily McClellan (l0 and Les Little (r) flank him.
Whirlpool closed its plants in Benton Harbor and then proceeded to take over the city’s public property including beautiful Jean Klock Park on Lake Michigan.
It is one of the corporations behind the “dictator law” called Public Act 4 under which the state has appointed “emergency managers” and established consent decrees that now have absolute power over the assets, revenues, debt payments, jobs and services of cities across Michigan, including Benton Harbor and even Detroit.
It is no accident that a management-level KitchenAid employee with access to the company’s official Tweet system made these remarks. They reflect the corporation’s political views as a whole.
By Martha C. White, NBC News contributor
KitchenAid is famous for its mixers, but the brand learned the hard way about the perils of mixing personal political views with official company messaging on social views.
On Thursday morning, parent company Whirlpool was in damage-control mode after an offensive message was sent from the company’s official Twitter account during last night’s presidential debate.
“Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’,” the Tweet read, a response to a reference President Barack Obama made about his grandmother’s passing. It was quickly deleted, but not before a flurry of screenshots and retweets thwarted the attempt at erasure.
Marcher confronts PGA tourists in Benton Harbor May 26, 2012.
KitchenAid’s senior director of marketing Cynthia Soledad followed up with a series of Tweets apologizing for the “irresponsible tweet that is in no way a representation of the brand’s opinion.”
“It was carelessly sent in error by a member of our Twitter team who, needless to say, won’t be tweeting for us anymore,” she wrote. “That said, I take full responsibility for my team. Thank you for hearing me out.”
In a statement, Soledad said an employee intending to Tweet the comment from a personal Twitter account mistakenly sent it from the company’s account instead. “Appropriate actions are being taken” regarding that employee, she said.
In general, branding experts say that one-off gaffes like this, while embarrassing in the short term, don’t do lasting damage to a brand. A swift, contrite apology like Soledad’s is the best response to offensive employee behavior. The incident does illustrate the perils companies face as they try to juggle an increasing number of communication channels, some of which must be managed in real time, while maintaining a consistent brand voice.
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/05/31/benton-harbor-a-poem/
- For more information, Contact Rev. Edward Pinkney, 269-925-0001
- http://www.bhbanco.org
- Blogtalkradio.com “Pinkney to Pinkney” Every Sunday 5pm
REMEMBER: VOTE ‘NO’ ON PROPOSAL 1 TO REPEAL PUBLIC ACT 4, November 6, 2012.
