Kmart Australia stepped on a bag of s**t, after touting a bag used to keep Christmas ham fresh in the fridge — a bag with the inscription, “Merry Ham-Mas.”
Pretty obvious … after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the colorful bag which once was just a trapping of XMAS now has another meaning … one that has enraged some Jewish groups.
The Australian Jewish Association made its feelings clear, posting a pic of the bag with the caption, “K-MART STUFF-UP! Check out the special Christmas bag currently available via K-Mart online. Yes, it’s real!! Although this is potentially funny (the AJA committee has tossed around some non-PC jokes) it’s really not a good look. We suspect some product manager may cause the company some embarrassment. So we’ve politely written to Wesfarmers corporate suggesting the product be pulled.”
Well, Kmart heard them loud and clear, because an hour later Kmart yanked the item from its site.
The company did a mea culpa, simply saying, “We got it wrong on this occasion, and we apologize unreservedly. When designing this product we clearly didn’t think through all the implications and the product has been removed from sale.”