Online grocer's illegal meat stunt for April Fools' backfires
You can't attempt an April Fools' stunt without taking a PR risk, right?
Singaporean online grocer Honestbee tried that this week with an Indiana Jones-themed sale of meat from endangered animals such as panda, tiger and whale.
The company started taking orders earlier in the week on its site, with the delivery date cunningly set as Apr. 1.
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The idea, which the company later revealed in an April Fools' Day blog post, was to draw attention to the much more important issue of wildlife conservation. It plans to donate proceeds from purchases on the fake page to a handful of wildlife conservation charities, including the World Wildlife Fund and Wildlife Reserves Singapore, it said.
But before Friday, angry comments started showing up on its Facebook page already, many from customers who knew it was a stunt but weren't charmed by it.
It seems many were offended by fake but graphic pictures of items like bear paws and tigers tails that Honestbee used for the page, including descriptive copy of how they would taste.
The order page was gone by April Fools' Day itself, but the grocer has continued to draw scorn on its Facebook page from offended folk, despite its blog post later explaining itself.
Not everyone was as incensed. Amid the pages of annoyed customers, some thought the stunt was effective, and posted messages in support.
Customers who paid for the exotic meat instead received an animal-themed snack pack on the day, with some information on how to make further donations to wildlife charities.
Honestbee told Mashable that it sent emails to customers who paid, to ask if they wanted a refund, or to receive the novelty pack and make the donation to the non-profit organisations.
One of the customers, Weiling Cheang, posted pictures of her pack on Honestbee's Facebook page:
The company has operations in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, but it appears that the joke was just for Singaporean customers.
UPDATE: April 1, 2016, 6:41 p.m. SGT Added Honestbee's response.
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Victoria Ho is Mashable's Asia Editor, based in Singapore. She previously reported on news and tech at The Business Times, TechCrunch and ZDNet. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band
