Kellogg's sorry for promising food to poor kids in exchange for re-tweets

KELLOGG'S UK has been forced to apologise after sending a tweet implying they'd give one vulnerable child breakfast in exchange for a re-tweet.

kellogg's

CEREAL manufacturer Kellogg's has been embroiled in a Twitter storm after sending a tweet which implied they would give one vulnerable child breakfast in exchange for a re-tweet.

The message which read "1 RT = 1 breakfast for a vulnerable child" was sent from the @KelloggsUK account at 4pm on Sunday UTC (3am Tuesday AEDT), triggering a swift social media backlash.

The company was trying to promote its Give A Child A Breakfast campaign.

Some enraged followers pointed out that the tweet suggested the company would only be donating breakfasts to vulnerable children if the initiative received sufficient publicity.

Others criticised the company's ill-conceived social media campaign.

@BotanyGeek wrote: "Anyone else find this kinda creepy? Like sayin 'Help us advertise or kids go hungry'."

@Hyper_Linda tweeted: "retweet @KelloggsUK OR ELSE kids will go hungry."

The cereal giant later deleted the tweet and apologised: "We want to apologise for the recent tweet, wrong use of words. It's deleted. We give funding to school breakfast clubs in vulnerable areas."

However the apology appeared to further annoy some social media users.

Twitter user @The_No_Show replied: "Not “wrong use of words”, you said exactly what you meant to say. It was just a lousy social marketing plan."

Kellogg's UK followed up its grovelling tweet with a number of other tweets.

"Kellogg's is funding 1,000 breakfast clubs this year with grants and food vouchers. To find out more go to: http://www.giveachildabreakfast.com," the company tweeted.

Despite its social media backtrack, the company’s Give A Child A Breakfast website still promised "Tweet our campaign and we’ll give one more breakfast" on Sunday afternoon.

Read more at Metro.