Dive Brief:
- NFL's New England Patriot's had an innocent promotion backfire Thursday when it retweeted a user with a racial slur in its Twitter handle.
- The promotion was meant to celebrate the Patriots being the first NFL team to hit a million followers. Followers that retweeted the #1millionPatriots announcement received an automated message with a photo of a jersey with their Twitter handle.
- The racially charged Twitter handle made it through a filter process and the team was forced to apologize for the error.
We're saying thanks to @patriots' 1million followers w/ custom digital Pats jerseys - RT for yours! #1MillionPatriots pic.twitter.com/u2SfidCb9e
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 13, 2014
We apologize for the regrettable tweet that went out from our account. Our filtering system failed & we will be more vigilant in the future.
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 14, 2014
Dive Insight:
The kind of mistake the Patriots Twitter handle made could unfortunately happen to anyone. To avoid this kind of snafu, marketing teams have to be extra diligent—a task that's tricky when there's one million followers involved. With the quick apology and the fact that it was a follower and not a team member that used the racial slur, the brand should easily recover.
