By LIU Jiaxin
British auto marque Mini, owned by BMW, had a brain freeze at the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition (Auto Shanghai) Wednesday.
At its booth, Mini was offering visitors ice creams. Two girls were refused ice cream by the staff, who told them all ice cream had been handed out earlier.
It seems like a trivial enough matter, but the whole scene had been staged, recorded and was quickly dispatched into virality the next day.
The first problem was that several boxes of ice cream could be seen in the background of the video at the time.
The two Chinese girls having been refused their treat, went away. A few minutes later, when a foreigner showed up, he didn’t even need to ask. The staff hospitably offered ice cream to him.
The visitor who took the video – also Chinese - went up for an ice cream, and was rejected.
The given explanation was that the ices were a reward for downloading an app which could only be registered with overseas accounts. But the staff did not clarify what those accounts exactly were.
Mini apologized for its “careless management” and "staff negligence" in the afternoon.
Luneurs, the ice cream brand also released a statement, saying it provided the ice cream but played no part in the outrage.
