World Cup Mania Leads To Flag Crisis For Asda

With the 2014 World Cup just round the corner, businesses are doing all they can to get involved in one of the biggest events in the sporting calendar.

We’ve seen Premier Inn reserve rooms for standby players, Mastercard launch a miniature football dream team competition and even Paddy Power team up with physicist Stephen Hawking to analyse the chances of England’s success.

However Asda hasn’t been as successful with their latest product design. To stand out over other England Flags, Asda went one step further and created wearable flags with a hood – which has stirred up complaints on social media due to its resemblance to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) outfits.

Whilst the supermarket insists that they only opted for the hood on the wearable England flags because of the unpredictable British weather, the flags are still being partially withdrawn from stores across the country due to its similarities with the racist US organisation.

Originally Asda was planning to withdraw the hooded flag from all stores; however they have now given this decision to individual store managers to decide based on how they think the customer will respond in their area.

Just when we thought Asda had hit the nail on their head with their family friendly England gnomes, they have unintentionally caused a storm of unhappy customers right before the World Cup kicks off. Last year Asda caused a similar storm after selling a ‘mental patient’ Halloween costume that they withdrew from stores however this time Asda is sticking by their idea and plan on releasing a Brazilian flag in the same style.

It leaves us to say that whilst Asda clearly only had good intentions by adding a hood to the flag they’ve overlooked a major flaw in the design that has ultimately undermined their campaign and led to ridicule and some backlash from consumers.