German gun manufacturer Heckler & Koch addressed a controversy on social media after the person running their Twitter account defen...
German gun manufacturer Heckler & Koch addressed a controversy on social media after the person running their Twitter account defended a pro-feminism Miller Lite ad.
The company distanced themselves from their employee’s comments, which were also deleted. They tweeted, “The Road Forward” alongside an image of a road sign that said, “HK does not engage in identity politics. A policy was violated. Changes were made.”
The gun manufacturing company was likely referring to a series of tweets that went viral in the wake of a Miller Lite ad resurfacing online. The Miller Lite spot, which was originally released in March, celebrated female beer brewers and mocked previous advertising efforts featuring women in bikinis. The ad started circulating in amid the backlash toward Bud Light’s partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
“Wow- woke? Allow me to translate: objectifying women was never a good marketing strategy. In the firearms industry, that was a prominent strategy up until recently. Many industries have done that (including beer corps),” the Heckler & Koch verified Twitter account wrote in the now-deleted tweet.
“As an actual woman typing this, I’ll use more words for you to comprehend: using bunnies to sell products is trash marketing. Supporting women by not doing that is good.”
The social media manager criticized some aspects of the ad.
“Now to address the rest, non-bikini parts, of the ad: seems like they should have given sources for the info they’re throwing out. And, for them to isolate a huge part of their target consumer base makes no sense. Annnd, their virtue signaling ad doesn’t even make me want to drink their beer,” she wrote. “But, at least they used actual women for it (presumably).”
She went on to criticize the “old marketing strategy of putting a gun in a ‘bikini model’s’ hand for the sake of marketing and not even making sure she knows how to hold the gun properly.”
Several Twitter users were pleased to see the company quickly take control of the situation with their follow-up tweet.
TurningPoint USA contributor Lauren Chen said, “Next up is an official apology, but it’s a good start.”
Conservative talk radio host Jesse Kelly wrote, “This is how you respond when the liberal white woman you hired finally reveals herself. Well done and I will now go back to wanting an HK, but never actually spending that kind of money.”
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