*Sprint on Tuesday yanked a promo video that came under fire on social media over its use of the world “ghetto.”
The spot shows Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure on a “listening tour” asking a customer, a white woman, what she thinks of rival cell phone company T-Mobile.
“I’m going to tell you a carrier name, and I want you to basically tell me what comes to your mind,” Claure says. “T-Mobile. When I say T-Mobile to you, just a couple of words?”
“Oh, my God, the first word that came to my mind was … ‘ghetto’!” said the customer, as other people in the room laugh. “That sounds, like, terrible. I don’t know.
“People who have T-Mobile are just, like, why do you have T-Mobile?” she continued.
Watch below:
Claure tweeted the video on Tuesday, writing: “Honest answers from real people on my #ListeningTour across the country. Sometimes the truth hurts, @TMobile.”
Here are just some of the responses to the video via Twitter:
@marceloclaure @TMobile @YouTube Ghetto? Seriously? Is @sprint really that stupid to use this for marketing?
— jerzyiroc (@Jerzyiroc) April 12, 2016
@marceloclaure “Ghetto?” Wow. Not vaguely racist at all.
— Adam (@adamtyree) April 12, 2016
Eight hours and a backlash later, Claure decided to pull the video.
My job is to listen to consumers. Our point was to share customer views. Bad judgment on our part. Apologies. Taking the video down.
— MarceloClaure (@marceloclaure) April 13, 2016
But the backlash didn’t stop.
@marceloclaure I was a sprint customer for years and eventually moved to Tmobile…wimax vs 4g . Improve your prices instead of trash talk — Lenin Diaz (@oppman29) April 13, 2016
@marceloclaure I used a sprint phone to make a call while standing under a sprint tower, poor quality call with slow data, that was ghetto.
— Adam ybarra (@Adamybarra3) April 13, 2016
@marceloclaure Have been pondering leaving @sprint , and this makes it so much easier to decide. Bye. — Amanda Carlson (@SocialAwkwards) April 13, 2016
@marceloclaure you can take it down but it will live forever on the Web https://t.co/z8KCWYw27I
— Bobby Delaney (@thatgeekdad) April 13, 2016
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