When a company commits what should be a fairly obvious PR disaster, our response is almost always the same.
Since each decision a big multinational corporation makes presumably goes through multiple pairs of eyes, we always wonder how none of them realized what a bad idea they had on their hands.
And unfortunately, it’s surprisingly rare that we ever get an actual answer when we ask how the blunder happened.
While the obligatory apology and proposed action taken may show the company is taking the matter seriously, it also tends to leave a lot of questions unanswered.
Unfortunately, it seems that the case we’ll be discussing today is no exception. However, it also invites a lot of educated guesses.
On October 30, a particular promotion was circulating throughout select McDonald’s locations in Portugal.
In a similar fashion to this vintage ad, it was promoting a special sundae designed for Halloween.
Since the sauce draped over the ice cream looked a lot like blood, it made sense for the name to incorporate that aspect.
And from there, we can only guess that somebody around the board room table recalled that U2 released a song called “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” but remembered literally nothing else about it.
And so, they ended up adorning their display with this “sundae bloody sundae” pun.
But what they would soon learn is that they were making light of a horrific day that has resonated in Northern Irish culture ever since.
Specifically, “Bloody Sunday” refers to a massacre in Derry, Northern Ireland on January 30, 1972.
According to the BBC , approximately 15,000 took to the streets to protest a law empowering authorities to imprison suspects without trial.
Members of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment were deployed in response and the situation culminated with at least 21 soldiers opening fire on the protesters. Their actions ended up killing 13 people and wounding an additional 15.
RELATED STORIES
As you might expect, the display’s cutesy reference to the tragedy sparked serious backlash on Twitter.
Many commenters figured that the Portuguese marketers couldn’t have been hateful enough to reference the massacre on purpose.
However, they could still only characterize their use of a song title that solely exists as a reference to the event without realizing its context as a shocking level of ignorance.
Once it had become apparent what they had done, McDonald’s Portugal pulled all of the “sundae bloody sundae” material.
As CNN reported , representatives also went on to apologize, stating that they had not intended “to upset or insult anyone in any way.”
They added, “We sincerely apologize for any offense or distress this may have caused.”
