It’s that time of the week! Another fantastic teachable moment born of my one simple philosophy, “TAKE TIME TO THINK!”

A Krispy Kreme Donut location in the United Kingdom released a weeklong series of in-store events to bring in business during the midterm break for students. Included in the activities are board-games, face painting and coloring pages.

On Wednesday, however, the week of fun took a turn with a promotion entitled “Krispy Kreme Klub Wednesday” which was meant to be a day for kids to come in a decorate their own donuts. The event title was shortened to “KKK Wednesday”.

KKK is, of course, more infamously associated with the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist hate group. Users following the location on Facebook were quick to point this out once the advertisement went live.

Oops.

The gaffe apparently went unnoticed by the creator of the advertisement (seen here) and all those who approved it.

“We do believe this was a completely unintentional oversight on the part of our longtime franchise partners in the U.K.,” according to a statement released by company spokesperson Lafeea Watson and I completely agree.

This was an honest, yet completely avoidable mistake if everyone involved had taken those few extra moments to think and look at the bigger picture.

The event was isolated to the singular store in Hull, United Kingdom and all promotion materials have since been removed from official social media for the store. That hasn’t stopped this story from going viral, earning it world-wide attention.

“We are truly sorry for any inconvenience or offense this misstep may have caused our fans,” the company statement says, also noting that the location would be “taking greater precautions with their publicity materials in the future.”

So again I ask everyone to learn from this mistake and always remember to Take Time To Think!

Josh Gunderson is an award-winning Bullying Prevention and Social Media Specialist. Josh has appeared on MTV, Comedy and National Geographic. For more information about Josh and his educational programs please visit www.HaveYouMetJosh.com

You can purchase Josh’s book “Cyberbullying: Perpetrators, Bystanders & Victims” on Amazon! Available in paperback or for Kindle.