Home Depot found itself answering to a furious public after its Twitter account posted a picture that many thought was racist and offensive.
The offending picture, was a promo for a college sports event that Home Depot sponsors, here’s a screenshot below:
Here’s a screenshot of the @HomeDepot tweet… pic.twitter.com/R1GmK5Iwv6
— Jonathan Wall (@imfromraleigh) November 7, 2013
. @homedepot posted a picture of two black men & someone in a gorilla costume & asked us to guess which one was different. Unbelievable.
— Nichole (@tnwhiskeywoman) November 7, 2013
Hey @HomeDepot, are you deeply sorry for the dumb tweet? Have you deleted it? pic.twitter.com/ljXWjwy4kr
— Sam Laird (@samcmlaird) November 7, 2013
After the firestorm on Twitter, Home Depot scrambled to delete the picture and let everyone know it had fired the individual and the outside agency responsible for the tweet. It declined to name the agency.
We have zero tolerance for anything so stupid and offensive. Deeply sorry. We terminated agency and individual who posted it.
— The Home Depot (@HomeDepot) November 7, 2013
Home Depot’s social media prowess has been praised on numerous occasions, especially on this blog, where we’ve singled out their creative Vines, Tumblr and Instagram pages. It’s a suprise that a tweet like this could go out unchecked from an organization with a pretty sophisticated social media team.
Since then, Home Depot has taken to sending a personal apology to every single person who tweeted at them about the picture. Not a bad way to handle the fallout, but some people say blaming the entire thing on an outside agency was too convenient, and Home Depot should have done more.
