Krispy Kreme "Coongrats" Controversy

Submission 4,555

Overview

Krispy Kreme "Coongrats" Controversy refers to backlash against a commercial rolled out by the doughnut chain Krispy Kreme, specifically in Australia and New Zealand, in which the word "coongrats" briefly appears on the screen. As "coon" is a racial slur, some online voiced criticism of the ad, leading Krispy Kreme to pull it from the internet and apologize, though some argued that those ostensibly offended were being too sensitive.

Background

On July 5th, 2023, Krispy Kreme Australia / New Zealand unveiled a series of ads in which words with Os in them, such as "hooray" and "movies," had their Os replaced by a series of donuts (example shown below).

One of these ads featured the word "congratulations," which over the course of the ad had the "O" replaced by three doughnuts, meaning for a brief moment, the word "coongrats" appeared on screen before becoming "cooongrats" (repost by Twitter user @recruitertg shown below). For context, "coon" has historically been used as a racial slur against Black people,^[2] though it is not the word's sole definition.

Ummmm @krispykreme ?? This is wild pic.twitter.com/o8SUs0ADQm

— Terry G (@recruitertg) August 22, 2023

Developments

On August 21st, 2023, Mumbrella^[3] reported that Krispy Kreme had removed the advertisement from social media and issued an apology over the backlash. The article cited anti-racism campaigner Dr. Stephen Hagen, who said, "It’s an absolute disgrace that in 2023, someone thinks they can come up with an… ad like that on a product that is very popular with people of colour."

Krispy Kreme’s marketing director Olivia Sutherland told the publication:

We never intended to offend any person or group. We are sorry for the oversight and have removed all congratulations-related ads from the campaign.

On August 22nd, 2023, Twitter user @recruitertg^[1] pointed out the brief "coongratulations" moment (shown above). This appears to be the first post on social media to point out the contentious moment.

The story soon spread to other media publications, including The Mirror,^[4] the New York Post^[5] and the Daily Mail.^[6] These articles brought attention to the micro-controversy on social media.

On August 22nd, X user @LorraineMKing^[7] called the gaffe a disgrace, reposting The Mirror's article and gaining over 30 retweets and 140 likes in one day (shown below, left). The same day, user @outdoorsWI1^[8] expressed that they didn't think it was a big deal, opining the controversy was "racists trying to find racism," though the post didn't see significant spread (shown below, right).