Burger King said ‘Women belong in the kitchen’ in 1 tweet, what happened next was terrible

Several brands post content on social media highlighting specific days’ importance for promotion and one such campaign was initiated by Burger King on International Women’s Day in 2021 on Twitter. As many of you might already know, Twitter is a microblogging platform and with the rise of its popularity, many people have started building content threads which are essentially more than a series of tweets that are linked to the primary tweet. The problem in most cases is, that if the primary tweet is not cleverly understood, it can backfire leading to a backslash on a public platform. Here is a similar mistake that Burger King produced, and what followed were trolls. Let’s look at the tweet first:

This was the primary tweet and the company posted two more tweets appending to this one.

What was the intention of Burger King behind the Tweet?

Burger King is one of the leaders in the restaurant segment spotted the gender disparity and thought it would be ideal for them to raise a voice of difference during International Women’s Day in 2021. The whole concept revolved around the fact that, back in the date, only 20% of chefs were women and the brand wanted to create equal opportunities for women to pursue a culinary career. All they had to do was to direct the intentions right, but that didn’t go well.

Two things that went totally wrong:

1. The order of information flow
2. A sexist statement on a day that’s widely popular across the world on social media channels.

The first tweet read just how it’s above and the next one actually summarized what it meant. The very first line of the next tweet was “If they want to, of course” followed by mentioning their new scholarship program that would help women to get a degree in culinary arts. That would in turn mean reducing the gender gap in the restaurant domain.

An Apology From Burger King:

“The best time to apologize was yesterday, the next best is today.” and this holds true even today. Many media brands focus on social media content that’s snipped and if not shared in a conventional manner, can create a cascading impact on the brand image. Though it was a late apology, Burger King stood up to its promise and explained the reasoning before it deleted the tweet. The tone of ‘being guilty’ and yet making a point is clearly seen in this case.

A takeaway

A clear case of clever copyrighting but bad execution. Many brands focus on the value and importance of copyright, and rightly so. But equally important is how the content is channelized. Every social media works differently and user consumes data in a different manner as well. There’s not a single fit for all approaches. Twitter, just like others functions differently but since it’s a microblogging, snipping the right content with the right intention is key. Grabbing attention with the power of words is great, but the catch is using the right words that create engagement and not a flair of agony.

I personally feel the content of this tweet was brilliant enough to fit into one tweet or it could have been easily structured to fit the purpose burger king was intending. Here’s is the whole tweet’s repositioning:

Women belong in the kitchen.

 

If they want to, of course. Yet only 20% of chefs are women. We’re on a missing to change the gender ratio in the restaurant industry by empowering female employees with the opportunity to pursue a culinary career. #IWD

What would be your approach to tweeting this same content? Share it in the comments below. In case you wish to know more about some AI-powered tools generating content and headlines, here are a few examples.

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