MELTDOWN

BMW Ice Cream Giveaway Sparks Viral Outrage in China

The car company was accused of discrimination over a promotion at the Shanghai auto show.

Social media users in China expressed fury at BMW on Thursday over discrimination allegations involving an ice cream giveaway. Attendees at the Shanghai auto show said staff at the Mini booth discriminated between foreign and domestic visitors when handing out free ice cream, with video footage appearing to show workers telling Chinese attendees that they’d run out of the dessert moments before handing a tub to a Western man. Amid the furore, the topic “BMW Mini” rocketed to the second most-searched subject on the Chinese social media site Weibo. The official Mini account on Weibo apologized for the incident Thursday and blamed poor internal management for the “unhappiness.” A source familiar with the incident, which local media said happened Wednesday, told Reuters that the 300 tubs of ice cream reserved for visitors had run out, and that the foreigner seen in the viral footage was an employee of BMW. They added that the booth staff were temporary workers hired for the show.