A doughnut maker seems to have thrown a little tweety pie in its own face.
Yesterday Entenmann's, the maker of gooey things that people rather like, sent out what it says it viewed as a routinely topical tweet.
It read: "Who's #notguilty about eating all the tasty treats they want?!"
At least, I must take the Huffington Post's word for that, as the tweet has now been removed. However, I feel confident that the Huffington Post isn't guilty of lying since, today, Entenmann's Twitter feed is rather full of fulsome apology.
The tweet-writers have since apologized on behalf of Entenmann's and personally to anyone who tweeted their discomfort with the treat-maker using a Twitter tag that--at least yesterday--was widely being used for posts dedicated to the, for some, difficult-to-digest verdict in the trial of Casey Anthony, the mother whose child mysteriously died.
It seems that the tweet might have been sent out by an operative of Likeable Media, whose sterling motto is "Every brand should be likeable."
Likeable went onto its own site to fully explain what happened.
"The truth is, our team was leveraging the trending topics and moving so fast they neglected to see what the hashtag was related to," wrote Likeable's leader, Dave Kerpen.
The truth is that I am not sure everyone will like to believe that. The whole world seemed rapt with wonder at the Casey Anthony verdict--CNN alone claimed that it had more than 1 million viewers online for its feed.
Is it possible that the person who invented this tweet might, just for the seconds that it took to pen it and post it, have thought it was funny?
Of course, these things happen. Not so long ago, Kenneth Cole tweeted that Egypt must be in uproar over the company's new shoe collection, so personal humor can slip out and put its foot squarely between a brand's teeth.
One might have imagined, though, that Likeable could do little more than apologize--or perhaps, reprimand the individual responsible for sending the tweet.
However, the company doesn't appear to work that way. So Kerpen felt the need to add to his apology in this way: "While this was clearly a mistake, it's important to not only say sorry, but to leave the situation better than it was before. To that end, I'll be continuing to do pro-bono work for nonprofit organizations in need."
Some might be wondering how this leaves the situation better--or, indeed, makes Likeable more likeable. Does this mean that if there hadn't been an outcry, Kerpen would have ceased doing pro-bono work? Does his doing more pro-bono work somehow act as a penance for the tweet?
When he does this pro-bono work, does he send out funny tweets?