KFC in Trinidad and Tobago celebrated Emancipation Day, August 1, on their Instagram account with a piece of KFC chicken, where the shadow showed a raised clenched fist. The symbol of solidarity and support.
The post was captioned “KFC wishes you a happy Emancipation Day”. Emancipation Day is celebrated every 1 August in Trinidad and Tobago, to commemorate the day in 1834 when slavery was officially abolished on the two islands.
A few hours later, the drumstick & fist post was removed, and replaced with another "Happy Emancipation day" message, this time the visual was of KFC balloons. One flying red balloon and several not flying white balloons on the ground.
“Happy Emancipation Day. On August 1, 1985, Trinidad & Togabo became the first country in the world to declare a national holiday to commemorate the abolition of slavery.”
But later that day, the ballon post was removed as well, and KFC issued this apology:
While people in that post comment that they saw nothing wrong with the first image, clearly someone complained. Meanwhile, in Guyana, KFC celebrated emancipation day with this post:
In line with KFC's franchise system, local country KFC's get their advertising and social media help from local advertising agencies. Seen by a global audience, a local message can take on a whole different meaning. Years ago, when Australian KFC diffused an awkward "wrong team seats" situation by making new friends with a bucket of fried chicken, American commentators at the Huffington Post and the likes, argued it was racist to befriend the opposing team's fans with chicken, as the opposing team was from the West Indies. The online complaints grew so strong that KFC Australia eventually pulled the ad that offended American viewers it wasn't targeted to.
Looks like something similar happened here.
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