LG Poland apologises for 'ill-conceived' upskirt TikTok promo video

Electronics company LG Poland has apologised on TikTok after it copped flak for a promo video of its dual camera accessory for smartphones. The video in question featured an old man using LG Electronics’ V60 ThinQ smartphone with the dual screen feature to take pictures of a young lady walking up the stairs in front of him, according to The Korea Herald.

Upon hearing the shutter sound, the lady suspects that the old man took pictures of her from the back and snatched his phone, only to realise the old man was taking selfies. The lady politely apologises to the old man and walks away, however, the plot twist is that the old man had indeed taken pictures of her and could cover it up with one selfie through the dual screen accessory on LG smartphones. A quick check by Marketing found that the promo video, which was uploaded on its official TikTok account, has been removed.

The backfire from netizens led to LG Poland putting up an apology on its TikTok account. In the TikTok post, the electronics company said a video by LG Poland failed to follow the proper approval process for social media content, and did not live up to the standards and policy of LG Electronics and was immediately removed.

“We apologise for any offence this ill-conceived video may have caused. We will strive to prevent such an occurrence from happening again in the future,” the statement read.

The Korea Herald reported that the dual frame accessory allows a single-screen smartphone to have a connection for a second screen equipped with more cameras. It added that the video had over two million views on social media before it was removed.

Recently, there was another case of offensive promo ad. Just last week, Volkswagen pulled an ad featuring Golf cars from its Instagram page and apologised for being "racist" and "distasteful". According to multiple media reports including BBC and Reuters, the ad reportedly featured a large pair of white hands "push and then flick" a black man away from the yellow Golf into a cafe known as "Petit Colon", which also translates from French to German as "Little Colonist". The audio in the background contained "a woman's laughter, upbeat music, and comedic sound effects", BBC added. According to the BBC, German television said that the hand could be thought of as making a "white power" gesture, and that the letters which appear subsequently briefly spell out a racist slur in German. Volkswagen's board member for sales and marketing Juergen Stackmann and head of diversity management Elke Heitmueller, apologised on LinkedIn and Twitter.