American Apparel has faced a backlash over its latest email campaign enticing east coast Americans to its stores during Hurricane Sandy. People have taken to Twitter to let the company know exactly how they feel about it.
Whilst most of the world has been worried about loved ones over on the east coast of the United States, American Apparel has offered 20% off to shoppers “in case they were bored of the storm” via email. It’s a classic misstep in judging public perception during a very sensitive time.
When you create a campaign, you want to give a little extra that will help traffic, footfall or give a reason for new customers to remember you. The ‘trick’ (if you can really call it that) is to inspire a strong emotion so that someone wants to respond to you or share it with their friends.
Many people will be looking at the ad campaign now and think “Just how did they think this will go over?”. Linking boredom with disaster isn’t going to be a very comfortable emotion for many people to experience.
So far, there has been no official response from American Apparel but the tweets keep mounting up.
Here are a few tweets we decided to show you: