Bic SA #HappyWomensDay poster stirs up social media, misses the point

Probably one of the most renowned brands in the niche world of ballpoint pens, Bic is the latest company to cause a stir on social media. Its social media shoutout to #HappyWomensDay just backfired after it tweeted a poster with a controversial quote.

The Bic-branded image is of a stock imaged young professional women with the following tagline: “Look like a girl, Act like a lady, Think like a man, Work like a boss.”

Needless to say, this sentiment didn’t go unnoticed and the brand was at the end of an immediate backlash.

After deleting the tweet and removing the Facebook post, the company quickly followed up with the following response on Facebook:

We would like to apologise to all our fans who took offense to our recent Women’s Day Post. We can assure you that we meant it in the most empowering way possible and in no way derogatory towards women. We took the quote from a “Women in Business” blog site. http://bit.ly/1J8SY5x
The blog site explains the quote and what its intentions were when it was written. BIC believe in celebrating women and the powerful contribution women make to our society.

Read more: Social media marketing: it’s about more than nice-looking profiles

Bic SA says that the quote was taken from a “Women in Business” blog site by Spicy Broccoli Media and was taken out of context. This response has been described as just “idiotic” by some.

One Facebook commenter, Michelle Groenewald, said, “Dear Bic, just because you found that ridiculous quote on a blog about women in business doesn’t justify your idiotic advert.”

A lot of people pointed out that while the company has apologised, it seemed to have missed the point — ironically so. Others have even accused the company of plagiarism as it wasn’t originally attributed to the blog post.

This is how @Bic_SA chose to apologize. No reflection on inherent problem w the image. Shame on them… pic.twitter.com/jNCgDu2xGd

— Rebecca Smith (@Rebecca_Smith90) August 11, 2015

 

Arrives back at office. Looks through Twitter. Spots the @Bic_SA Tweet. Grabs popcorn. pic.twitter.com/QNnTzANLRs

— Kirsty Sharman (@kirstycarrot) August 11, 2015

First pink lady pens, now this? @bicpens REALLY don’t get it, do they? pic.twitter.com/7vhdxdZLgP

— Anna Frame (@annaframe) August 11, 2015

As journalist Mandy Wiener pointed out, this isn’t the brand’s first social media blunder. The Bic SA Twitter account has also been tweeting quotes from the controversial Bill Cosby, who’s being accused of sexual harassment.

Bic has since posted a second apology to Facebook, which reads:

Hi everyone. Let’s start out by saying we’re incredibly sorry for offending everybody – that was never our intention, but we completely understand where we’ve gone wrong. This post should never have gone out. The feedback you have given us will help us ensure that something like this will never happen again, and we appreciate that.

Bic now has a lot of damage control to manage and this should show other companies how to approach its audiences. Everyone is equal.

More so than ink, pixels stay forever.