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You may have seen some tweets about Burger King, specifically their brand in the UK, and something about International Women’s Day and a whole lot of anger. If you’re confused and want to keep track of what’s going on, that’s what we’re here to do.
Basically: this is a case of a brand tweeting a really awful thing to get everyone’s attention, by then following it up by revealing that it was part of a a big new project Burger King UK was working on. The lesson here? Brands: don’t do that.
OK, what the heck happened here?
This is a tweet from Burger King UK that just so happened to go out on March 8, which is International Women’s Day.
Women belong in the kitchen.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
WHAT?! HOW DARE THEY?!
Right? Except that wasn’t the message, which continued as part of the thread revealing BK UK will be launching a scholarship program to “help female Burger King employees pursue their culinary dreams!”
If they want to, of course. Yet only 20% of chefs are women. We're on a mission to change the gender ratio in the restaurant industry by empowering female employees with the opportunity to pursue a culinary career. #IWD
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
We are proud to be launching a new scholarship programme which will help female Burger King employees pursue their culinary dreams!
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
Did they apologize?
Not really. There was a lot of doubling down:
We think it's weird that women make up only 20% of chefs in the UK restaurant industry. That's why we’ve created a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
To bring attention to the huge lack of female representation in the restaurant industry? Yeah we think it's a good idea, that's why we’ve created a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
Why would we delete a tweet that’s drawing attention to a huge lack of female representation in our industry, we thought you’d be on board with this as well? We've launched a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
Our "thought process" is that women are shockingly underrepresented in our industry, and we thought it was time we did something about it. We've created a scholarship to give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
What was some of the other reaction?
A lot of tweets that look like this:
Burger King is on the naughty list for click-baiting us all with a rude tweet. pic.twitter.com/JrILY849R8
— Santa Decides (@SantaDecides) March 8, 2021
i don't know why i tweet in anything other than this format pic.twitter.com/MXQsDQTAjX
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) March 8, 2021
The Only Way To Eat Burger King👎 pic.twitter.com/Dmji6lUbS4
— Official🐐(24-13)And(0-0) (@Officialj0nn) March 8, 2021
Was this a good idea?
No. No it was not.
