It probably seemed a good idea at the time for whoever was responsible for the tweet at American clothing designer Kenneth Cole. But taking a light-hearted approach to a serious problem obviously caused offence to many and the apology (of sorts) tweet arrived two hours later.

It does raise an interesting question in regard to businesses using Twitter for marketing. Previously, ad campaigns would involve many people, a reasonably long time frame and would usually be checked thoroughly to avoid causing offence. But Twitter means that a thought (good or bad) can go global in a matter of seconds. This allows businesses to be incredibly responsive but can come at the cost of the vetting process. Perhaps a business should make sure that those in charge of sending tweets run it by a few other people first!