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Tesco and Cadbury face customer ire on Easter

A couple of misdirected ad campaigns over the Good Friday weekend forced big brands Tesco and Cadbury, among other brands, to go into damage control mode.

It has been a week since Easter, but some brands in the UK and Australia are not going to forget the occasion in a hurry, although they would like to.

Ignorance about customs and tradition while marketing reached new depths when supermarket biggie Tesco advertised “Great offers on beer and Cider” and to make it worse added the words “Good Friday just got better”. As far as offensive advertisement campaigns go, this was begging to be panned. And it did.

Cadbury was next on the hitlist as customers accused it of removing the word ‘Easter’ from its chocolate eggs when it posted photos of its products. “How could they?” went the indignant chorus on social media forcing the company to come out with a statement – “Our packaging includes the word Easter on pack and, importantly, for many of our Easter eggs it is even engraved on the egg itself.”

Australian supermarket chain Coles too copped it when its plans to keep 13,250 more outlets open during Easter misfired. It was reported that cashiers, holding signs that had “I’m free” written on them, had to face lewd customers making inappropriate comments. Coles backpedalled quickly.

This just goes to prove that big brands have to do the right thing. It is risky business being in the public eye.

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