Rant: That time a local bakery's Instagram apology made things 10x worse

Last year a bakery near me in Portland posted a photo of a cake with a slur written in frosting as a "joke." They deleted it after an hour, then put up this weird apology that blamed "an intern" and said they were "learning." People screenshot everything, so they got caught in a lie when the owner was the one who posted it. The apology got ratioed so hard they actually closed for a week to "reevaluate." Has anyone else seen a brand try to blame an intern and make people even angrier?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaret_gonzalez258d ago

Did they actually think blaming an intern would work in 2023? That's like the oldest PR trick in the book and literally everyone sees right through it now. The owner doubling down by lying made it way worse because people love catching a business in a lie more than the original mistake. Portland definitely ate them alive for that one, especially since the apology sounded like it was written by a lawyer who never talked to a real person before.

eric7237d agoMost Upvoted

Are you serious, that apology was an absolute DISASTER. I swear they just copy pasted that from some 2010 PR template and called it a day. I saw someone break it down on Twitter and it had like three different versions of "we take full responsibility but actually we don't." Honestly the owner doubling down is what KILLED them. I watched a local news segment where they interviewed people outside the shop and it was like 8 out of 10 people were just there to laugh at them. Portland does NOT mess around when it comes to holding businesses accountable.

daniel_lane306d ago

Seven out of ten people from the local news thing, that's exactly what I remember seeing. I actually used to think blaming an intern was a smart move, like it would take the heat off the owner somehow. But @margaret_gonzalez25 is dead right, that trick died years ago and nobody falls for it anymore. Watching Portland tear that bakery apart online and in person really changed my mind, especially when the screenshots proved the lie so fast. It taught me that trying to shift blame just makes you look twice as guilty and pisses people off way more than owning the mistake from the start. That whole fiasco stuck with me because it showed how one bad PR move can destroy all the goodwill a local business built up over years.