Four times Aussies brands got commemoration very, very wrong

As Australians stopped around the country for a minute of silence to commemorate Remembrance Day, social media managers perspired as they wondered if their posts marking the day would hit the right note of solemn respect with their customer base and beyond.

It’s not always easy for brands to mark notable days in a way that nods to the commercial offering without coming off a little on the nose. Take KFC Germany, for example, which has apologised for offering a promotion to ‘commemorate’ Kristallnacht.

The push notification went out on Wednesday reading “Commemorate Kristallnacht – treat yourself to more soft cheese and crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!”

Just one hour later, shocked customers received a second note apologising and citing a “fault in our system”.

Kristallnacht refers to the Night of Broken Glass, where Nazis ransacked Jewish businesses and synagogues across Germany in 1938, thought of as the beginning of the Nazi regime to decimate Europe’s Jewish population. Some speculate KFC’s notification was a computer-generated message linking a promotion to anniversaries and events.

But KFC Germany is hardly the first to very publically stuff up a commemoration. McDonald’s in Portugal swiftly deleted and apologised for an ice cream campaign called “Sundae Bloody Sundae”, though swore that it didn’t mean to reference Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Island.

Elsewhere, Bic South Africa quickly apologised for an International Women’s Day campaign that encouraged customers to look “like a girl [and] act like a lady” but “think like a man”, saying it was “incredibly sorry for offending everybody — that was never our intention”.

Back home, here are four controversial moments in Australian brand commemoration.

Poppies, but sexy

Staff at The Bookshop Darlinghurst, in Sydney’s inner-east, wanted to let their customer base know the store would be open on 2019’s ANZAC Day, a public holiday, so like many businesses it opted for an Instagram post.

“We’re open today ANZAC Day,” the text read on top of a pale blue background, with four red poppies growing in the foreground alongside the illustration of a naked — and very muscled — man from behind, tilting his head solemnly.

Some offended WWII veterans said they found the post in bad taste, but other people noted it was in line with the bookshop’s usual social media strategy. On Easter, for instance, it posted a muscled hunk illustration with a big egg covering his crotch, and a fluffy bunny on his shoulder.

‘Fresh in our memories’

Staying on ANZAC blunders, Woolworths had to pull its advertising campaign in 2015 after the then-minister for veterans’ affairs Michael Ronaldson blasted it for being in poor taste.

The campaign encouraged people to upload a photograph of a person affected by war to a profile picture generator website, which branded the images with the Woolworths logo and the text “Lest We Forget Anzac 1915-2015. Fresh in our memories. Woolworths”.

The ‘fresh food people’ received immediate backlash, while many social media users poked fun at the opportunistic campaign by posting photographs of everyone from Hitler to the Grumpy Cat.

“The Australian community quite rightly expects that the word ‘ANZAC’ is not trivialised or used inappropriately and as minister for veterans’ affairs, I am responsible for ensuring that any use of the word ‘ANZAC’ does not provide commercial benefit to an organisation,” Ronaldson said in a statement at the time.

Not the Australian Day

Big W follows Aldi in recalling controversial 'Australia Est. 1788' shirt. Photo by @unami22 http://t.co/8HkbPGRM1U pic.twitter.com/hcFDPziJeE

— ABC News (@abcnews) January 9, 2014

Australia Day is increasingly dangerous territory for brands, with many consumers choosing to mark the day with a solemn respect for our First Nations peoples, rather than a raucous celebration of Australia’s modern history.

In 2014, Big W and Aldi read the room wrong when the pair stocked a range of Australia Day t-shirts reading “EST. 1788”, sparking widespread condemnation on social media for implying Australia began when the First Fleet arrived.

Cultural capability facilitator Aaron Nagas pointed out at the time that, aside from being offensive, the shirt did not make sense — Australia was established in 1901, our Federation.

Woolworths confirmed the shirts would not be on sale at Big W, while Aldi, who advertised the shirts ahead of time as part of its range, released a statement saying they wouldn’t be going onto the shelves “following comments by a limited number of concerned customers”.

“Aldi Australia wants its customers to know it puts the community and their wishes first,” the Aldi statement read.

‘Jesus got hammered’

A pub in Sydney called Mary’s Newtown was met with a barrage of Christian backlash when it posted a quintessential image of Jesus with the caption “Jesus got hammered for his sins, you can too. Open from 12 Good Friday and ALL long weekend”.

“Brothers and sisters, PLEASE give this place a bad rating, they are Mocking our Lord Jesus Christ,” the Orthodox Christianity Facebook page reportedly urged its followers.

Suddenly a flood of negative reviews appeared on the pub’s Facebook page, including one that read “disgusting and disrespectful place”, while another declared “You’ve lost a customer (and probably a lot more) by that ignorant stunt”.

But it got much more serious fast. Mary’s co-owner Jake Smyth told a Sydney paper he deleted the post because he receive murder threats.