7-Eleven cops flak for naming PTU toy car as 'police dog unit'

7-Eleven Hong Kong has raised eyebrows for calling a Police Tactical Unit (PTU) toy car as "police dog unit" vehicle on its pre-ordering platform. A check by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE saw the product is removed from the site. 

This comes as a screen grab of a tiny die-cast Toyota Coaster B59 Police PTU toy car with a caption that wrote "police dog unit" has gone viral online. The move has drawn negative sentiments as a check by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE saw on LIHKG that, some netizens questioned whether the caption matched with thee actual toy car, while some said 7-Eleven should be aware of the typo.

However, some netizens pointed out that the shown toy car is similar to another "police dog unit" toy car model featured on the site, which should be equipped with air-conditioning - an important element for transporting police dogs.

Police-owned vehicles are generally identified with a "PTU" license plate, while the mentioned tiny model car is a Toyota Coaster B59 Police PTU, which is used as a transportation for the police.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to 7-Eleven for further information.

Launched in 2020, “7-Eleven Pre-order”  platform is a new business channel of 7-Eleven which provides the opportunity to reach out to more customers with different products. To further cater for customers' needs, 7-Eleven conducted research which shows consumers are willing to purchase products with popular and well-loved cartoon characters of all time. Therefore, the convenience store company started the “Pre-order” platform with collaborations with various brands and those cartoon characters and with a limited promotion period.  

Photo courtesy: LIHKG

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