Krispy Kreme learns the value of a fresh perspective

It is always imperative to get a fresh, outside perspective on whatever you’re doing. It aids creativity, can help develop ideas, provides impetus to your work and, perhaps most importantly, can help stop you from making a massive, embarrassing cock-up.

Or, in Krispy Kreme’s case, a kock-up.

The famous purveyor of glazed baked goods has this week attracted a huge amount of negative attention after a flier for some half-term children’s activities invited youngsters in Hull along to ‘KKK Wednesday.’

Ouch.

(I write this with the view that their mistake is excruciatingly obvious. However, I was taught never to make assumptions about an audience’s knowledge, so if you’ve not twigged, the initials KKK are irreversibly linked to the Ku Klux Klan, a violent, racist, white supremacist hate group in the American Deep South.)

Suffice to say this should have been picked up and avoided at all kosts.

As a brand, Kripsy Kreme’s initials are already ‘KK’ – that’s two out of the three – so you’d think it’d be something they’d be particularly aware of, and sensitive towards.

Like a gambler waiting for the third BAR sign to roll around on the slot machine, surely they are ever-vigilant about the possibility of the stars – or the Ks – aligning. Three K’s and you’re out.

Marketing materials, social media activity, advertisements, promotions, special offers, really must avoid adding that third K.

Apparently not. This unfortunate branch in Hull has made the krucial error and has been heavily kriticised on social media as a result. They kompounded the problem by not even klarifying what the KKK stood for – in this kase, Krispy Kreme Klub.

It shows the importance of an outside perspective. Let’s say the flier was the work of a 19-year-old shop assistant who had never heard of the KKK. It’s slightly odd, but it’s feasible. Surely, though a simple check with a kolleague would have massively decreased the odds of this hugely damaging mistake from ever seeing the light of day.