The tweet sent out by Kellogg’s (Picture: Twitter)

Cereal manufacturer Kellogg’s has embroiled itself in a Twitter storm after a misjudged marketing campaign turned into a PR blunder.

Tweeting under the handle @KelloggsUK the cereal company posted ‘1 RT = 1 breakfast for a vulnerable child’ on Saturday as part of its Give a Child a Breakfast campaign.

This enraged some followers with many pointing out that it seemed to suggest the company would only be donating breakfasts to vulnerable children if the initiative received sufficient publicity.

One Tweeter under the handle @BotanyGeek replied: ‘Anyone else find this kinda creepy? Like sayin “Help us advertise or kids go hungry”.’


Another, @Hyper_Linda tweeted: ‘retweet @KelloggsUK OR ELSE kids will go hungry.’

The tweet was meant to promote the company’s Give a Child a Breakfast campaign (Picture: Kellogg’s)

The company then defended itself on Sunday morning, tweeting: ‘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.’



Unfortunately for the cereal giant, despite its good intentions, that only served to irk people further.

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.’

Another, @Daleington, added: ‘Apparently @KelloggsUK already give to vulnerable kids, regardless of RTs.

‘Meaning it was just publicity off the back of vulnerable kids.’

Despite its Twitter 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.