Wal-Mart Blasted for Insensitive 9/11 Display

By Taylor Knight

Wal-Mart has joined the list of tone-deaf companies using the upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to sell products. At a store in Panama City Beach, Florida, a display was built out of soda to resemble the towers and above it, a message read: “We Will Never Forget.” Upset consumers took to Twitter to voice their displeasure.

https://twitter.com/Chaosxsilencer/status/774228670030290944

https://twitter.com/BertShowBert/status/773991965260124160

Total Retail’s Take: Trying to incorporate a national tragedy into your marketing tends not to be a good idea. We’ve seen it before with other brands like AT&T and Build-A-Bear — they both tweeted out photos then quickly deleted them when followers got offended. It’s proven time and again to be a terrible idea for brands to promote themselves on a day like Sept. 11, so just don’t do it.

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Taylor Knight Author's page Taylor Knight is an associate content editor for Target Marketing and Total Retail. She enjoys writing and creating video content to interact with an audience.