Gap joins American Apparel in suggesting Hurricane Sandy could be a good time for online shopping
Gap might be dressing up as American Apparel for Halloween, as both have faced a backlash on Twitter in the past 24 hours for suggesting that Hurricane Sandy, which is battering the east coast of America, provides a good opportunity to do some online shopping.
American Apparel sent an email advertising a 20 per cent sale for those affected by the storm, and Gap has had a similar idea, tweeting ‘All impacted by #Sandy, stay safe! We’ll be doing lots of Gap.com shopping today. How about you?’, with a foursquare link.
Gap has since deleted the tweet following a backlash, and quickly tweeted ‘To all impacted by #Sandy, stay safe. Our check-in and tweet earlier were only meant to remind all to keep safe and indoors.’
Comments from various tweeters included ‘seriously?’, ‘social media fail’, and ‘Habitat intern employed in US?’ by @malcolmcoles.
See other brands who have jumped on hashtags from world events to a bad effect – including Habitat and Kenneth Cole.