KFC Australia tried to make a dick joke. It backfired.
KFC Australia has misjudged its audience on social media as people who can handle an adult joke.
The fast food giant tweeted out a dirty image on Friday in a social media campaign for its new Hot & Spicy chicken range. Unfortunately, like your weird uncle's quips, the NSFW joke didn't really go down as intended. Zinger fail.
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The image features a woman who appears to be taking things a step further on the couch with her grinning mate. Those with a clean mind see a bucket of chicken wings behind the pixels, those like the rest of Australia, see a penis.
The tweet was removed from the platform not long after hordes of seriously offended people began sobbing into their Friday lunch.
People on Twitter often get mad. Today, they were in a particularly bad mood.
"This was a genuine tweet to launch KFC’s new Hot & Spicy chicken products next week. It was not intended to offend and we’ve removed the image," a spokesperson from KFC told Mumbrella originally.
In an updated statement, emailed to Mashable Australia, the company stepped back on its previous comment and apologised. "We are very sorry this occurred – we didn’t mean to offend and removed the post as soon as we realised we’d made an error in judgment," a KFC spokesperson said. "The post was meant to be a roll-out of our new Hot & Spicy products but we overstepped the mark and are sorry for any offence caused."
Someone has either lost their job or received a pay rise. It was one of the quickest marketing campaigns in Australian history and in that regard, it got the job done.
UPDATE: April 15, 2016, 2:20 p.m. AEST New statement from KFC added.
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Jenni Ryall is Mashable's VP of Content Strategy. She spends her time launching cool, new things such as Mashable Deals and Mashable Reels. On the other days, she is developing strong partnerships with companies including Apple News, Flipboard, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.
