"True Fruits": Reaping a shitstorm? Insult customers!

I guess you could call that a social media meltdown: The German smoothie manufacturer True Fruits, whose products are sold in Switzerland at Globus and Spar, among others, provoked with a sexist posting. The seemingly overwhelmed marketing department counters criticism with open insults. 

The fruit juice controversy has its origins in a harmless - and in itself good - idea. True Fruits has given the peach-passion fruit smoothie a summery design reminiscent of a bottle of sunscreen. The "Sun Creamie" is distributed as a limited edition.

On August 12, however, the company uploaded a post on its Instagram account that puts the smoothie in what many users criticize as a sexist context. The posting shows a woman with an ejaculating penis drawn on her back with suntan lotion - garnished with the question, "Summer, when are you going to celebrate your cumback?" Behind the pun is the combination of the English "cum" (for sperm) and "back" (for back), which are put in place of the actually correct "comeback". 

Accordingly, a discussion quickly broke out in the comments column on the posting: The vast majority of users feel the image is "bland sexist advertising by men for men" (the comment has 1449 likes); says "Enough!!! Unfollow is the only answer. Goodbye" (liked by 540 people) or thinks "Embarrassing. Just embarrassing" (this comment has 806 users supporting it). 

Instead of responding to the criticism or explaining their view of things, True Fruits' marketing department opts for the "double down" principle, i.e. raising the initial stakes. Sometimes it does this in the form of less refined sarcasm, but more often with jibes and insults uttered completely without empathy. An example of this: True Fruits responds to the comment of a user who relates the posting to a personal trauma as follows.

A company that uses its Instagram account as a public forum (and still has 136,000 subscribers) should be allowed to demand more respect for such comments from users. An apology or at least the explanation that one did not want to attack the user personally - that should be included. Instead, the statement is ridiculed. 

Now, everyone is free to think about sexism in advertising. Where it begins and where the boundaries of good taste end is a matter of debate. And it should also be said that hundreds of users take True Fruits in defense and call the critics "too sensitive". But even if you had no moral problem with the adolescent humor of the smoothie brandeteers, you would still have to call the campaign a creative declaration of bankruptcy. 

Because the days when provocation could be equated with innovation are long gone. Today, you have to do a bit more to surprise people with advertising. The limits of what can be said and shown were explored by others years before True Fruits - but often with much more esprit, wit or a political message behind it. What the German juice manufacturer is doing here is clumsy and transparent. The fact that the company often jokingly calls itself a "juice store" takes on a whole new meaning against this background.