I'm always prepared for a brand to flub its attempt at empowerment on International Women's Day, but I can't say I expected to spend the day watching fallout over a marketing tweet that literally said "Women belong in the kitchen."

Attempting to flip the sexist trope into a way of generating buzz for its new scholarship program for female employees with culinary degree ambitions, Burger King's U.K. division made a critical error in deciding to tweet the line without further context.

Sure, if you clicked through to the replies, you'd find that "Women belong in the kitchen" was a reference to the woeful lack of female chefs in the culinary world, but how many folks make a habit of reading replies and checking for threads?

After spending 12 hours defending the intent of the campaign, if not the execution of it on Twitter, the brand finally posted an apology and subsequently deleted the tweet as it became a hotbed of toxicity (primarily against women).

There are a lot of lessons in this one, most of them obvious.

One is something I remind writers about quite often in a newsroom: Don't be too clever for your own good. Sometimes the razor-sharp headline packed with wordplay and contextual inversions is...just too much. You can play it straight while still being compelling.

Another lesson is, of course, that all media are not the same. This was a concept that worked decently well in a full-page New York Times print ad where the payoff was immediate. But a tweet with no other context unless you clicked through to the replies? Not the same. That's simply a step too far.

But bigger than all this is the lesson that weighty topics carry weight for a reason. Systemic inequality isn't a joke or something to be addressed with a witty headline and a few scholarships. It's a complicated, soul-crushing issue that takes enduring, sincere efforts to address.

(If you need plenty of examples on that front, definitely check out our roundup of 100 women's experiences over the past year of working in marketing.)

Does that mean you always have to be morose and serious about issues like inequality? No. But it does mean you have to wade into such discussions with the understanding that it's incredibly easy to do more harm than good. 

What's your take on this situation? Let me know at the email below or at @Griner on Twitter.

David Griner
International Editor, Adweek
David.Griner@Adweek.com

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