KitchenAid tweet about Obama’s grandma stirs critics’ anger

By Tiffany Hsu and Andrea Chang, Los Angeles Times –

LOS ANGELES — The day after the first presidential debate, it wasn’t Barack Obama or Mitt Romney getting the most attention. It was the maker of colorful kitchen appliances.

KitchenAid spent much of Thursday trying to repair the damage from a wayward tweet about President Obama that whipped up social media outrage faster than one of its signature blenders can spit out a smoothie.

The tweet, put out by a member of the company’s social media team during the Obama-Romney faceoff Wednesday in Denver, attacked the president in a particularly personal way.

As Obama reminisced about his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who died shortly before Obama was elected president in 2008, the tweet appeared on KitchenAid’s official Twitter account, @KitchenAidUSA: “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president!”

The outrage was almost immediate, with angry Twitter users threatening to boycott the Benton Harbor, Mich., company.

The appliance maker, which is owned by Whirlpool Corp., quickly deleted the tweet. Cynthia Soledad, a KitchenAid marketing executive, issued a series of apologies via Twitter and Facebook.

“I would like to personally apologize to President @BarackObama, his family and everyone on Twitter for the offensive tweet sent earlier,” she wrote. “It was carelessly sent in error by a member of our Twitter team who, needless to say, won’t be tweeting for us anymore.”

Soledad said in a separate statement that the employee meant to post the tweet on a personal account but mistakenly sent it instead through the corporate account. She referred to the tweet as a “tasteless joke.”

The PR disaster shows the risks that companies take in using social media to leverage their brands. With 140 million active users worldwide, Twitter has been an especially popular site for corporations looking to advertise new products or tout discounts, particularly during big events such as the Academy Awards or the Super Bowl.

But in contrast to traditional advertising, the medium is fast-moving — and unforgiving. The click of a button can send the wrong message to millions. There were about 10 million debate-related tweets issued during Wednesday’s presidential showdown.

“Corporate America is completely wrestling with how to control all of their social media presences,” said Eric Yaverbaum, associate publisher of four social media magazines. “The lesson is, don’t give the keys to your Twitter account to a kid.”