Touchdog’s apology statement from its official Weibo account. Photo: Weibo.

A Chinese pet company Touchdog apologized on Thursday for improperly naming the groups for consumers participating in the brand’s reward campaign with abusive descriptions, after the screenshots of the names going viral on Chinese social media. 

Consumers participating in Touchdog’s reward campaign, in which members accumulate points, found out on Wednesday in one of the brand’s official Wechat groups that the names of their involved ranking groups were classified inappropriate and even with abusive description like “ugly women,” Chinese news outlet bjnews.com reported on Thursday. 

It was also reported that members who questioned and asked the administrator of the Wechat group for an apology, were kicked out of the group chat, while another employee in charge of the brand’s livestreaming on different platforms responded with even worse attitude, when consumers were requesting for apologies during the livestreaming session.

Touchdog apologized on its official Sina Weibo on Thursday, saying that the company has severely criticized and suspended the two responsible employees. 

According to the statement issued by the company, the administrator had previously modified the names of the ranking groups in order to liven up the atmosphere, but the management failed to check the new names and notified the issues promptly, while the official community operators did not solve the problem when responding to questions, bringing the issue to public attention. 

“We will further strengthen our employee training and deeply reflect on the issue,” said Touchdog in the statement. 

Global Times