Chinese people were angry at BMW’s discrimination. This is because it is known that ice cream was provided only to foreigners at the motor show, excluding Chinese. As the controversy escalated, BMW Mini issued an official apology and began to deal with the situation.
According to the China Youth Daily on the 21st, a visitor to the ‘Auto Shanghai 2023’ event held the day before claimed that BMW Mini exhibition hall staff discriminated against Chinese and foreigners over ice cream.
In the video filmed at the time, a female visitor went to the BMW Mini booth and asked two employees for ice cream. They said “no” to this. However, immediately after a foreign man pointed to the ice cream, the staff took it out of the box. When another Chinese spectator who watched this said, “Can you get that (ice cream) for free?”
The video quickly spread through social media such as Weibo. In this regard, on Weibo, ‘BMW mini ice cream’ ranked first in real-time search terms. Netizens posted angry comments such as “If you are going to discriminate, get out of China”, “Do you want to withdraw BMW from China”, and “blatant discrimination”.
The No. 1 search term on Weibo is ‘BMW mini ice cream’. As public opinion worsened, such as showing signs of a boycott, Mini apologized the day before through its official Weibo. Mini China said, “The (ice cream) event held at the Shanghai Motor Show was for all visitors,” and “We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the mistake of the staff. We will provide good service to all customers (in the future) by improving internal management and strengthening training. I am sorry again.”
A Chinese automobile media outlet said, “After the controversy, BMW suffered a bloody loss.” “The share price fell more than 3% during the European stock trading period. Its market capitalization of 2.1 billion euros evaporated. When converted into yuan, it was about 15.8 billion yuan, the most expensive ice cream price.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.