A chain of popular drinks production in China has apologized for using sexual slogans on its products, after it sparked widespread outrage online.
Sexy Tea depicted women as “commodities” on one of its mugs, adding that customers could choose a woman while they waited for their drinks.
The shop later said that it had no intention of “devaluing women.”
He added that he would withdraw the last set of cups, adding that he was “very ashamed” of his new innovation.
Sexy Tea recently launched a range of “Changsha Dialect Cups” – a dialect widely used in the capital of Hunan Prefecture. It is reported that the aforementioned beverage store chain has 270 branches there.
Various local phrases were printed on the mugs such as “Jian Lu ji”, which symbolizes a bargain at a low price.
Then the store gives an example of how to use the phrase with the sentence: “When I went to buy bubble tea, there were a lot of pretty girls. If you met a girl like that, you could tell your friend – you made a cheap deal.”
The image of the mug spread widely on the Chinese social networking site “Weibo” and quickly aroused criticism.
“This is tacky marketing,” one person said in his post.
Another added: “The phrase in itself is not offensive – but the explanatory sentence the company provided is the problem.”
And he added, “Did the marketing team not spot any errors?”
The company later issued a lengthy statement apologizing for its interpretation of the phrase.
“We put together an absolutely inappropriate sentence that even people in Changsha did not agree with … We are very ashamed. We certainly did not intend to underestimate the value of women,” she said.
“We will immediately withdraw the portion of the Changsha dialect from our cups and seriously study this incident,” he said.
Weibo users note that this is not the first time that SexiT has used sexually suggestive phrases in its marketing campaigns.
Many users indicated that in the past the store also sold tea bags with “sir, I want you” written on it, accompanied by pictures of young frogs (which resemble sperm).