Social Media Reacts to Tortina – valU Partnership

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Social Media Responds to Tortina – valU Partnership

(Photo Credit: valU Facebook account)

In recent years, Tortina has become famous sending fun variations on the traditional kunfa – a dessert made from pastry soaked in a sugar-based syrup, and sometimes layered with nuts and cream – during the month of Ramadan.

From Tres Leches, Lotus, and Mango kunafas; for the punnily named relatives, kunafa ‘drowned’ in condensed milk; and a dogSyrian kunafa ‘spoiled’ with condensed milk, sponge cake, and a light layer of cream.

This year saw the launch of her latest creative venture, in partnership with smart payment application valU: ‘kunafa met’asata(kunfa paid in instalments).

Probably inspired by joke made by one commenter ahead of the holy month, this Ramadan kunfa punk shocked social media users.

News of the marketing stunt was shared on news site Bankawy’s Twitter account on March 20, along with the link to an online registration form through which users could sign up to buy and pay for the kunfa in instalments.

The tweet, which has been retweeted more than 400 times, prompted responses ranging from laughter to disbelief and dismay at what some saw as a “tone deaf” announcement.

Some users expressed surprise or simply considered the pun as such, mocking the absurdity of selling desserts on an installment plan:

Translation: Why were you in prison? Oh, nothing, but late to pay installments on my confu.

Translation: So if I want to eat confuI will owe you until the Islamic New Year [in July]!

Translation: I think we should ruin the Tortina/valU collaboration by paying for the met’asata in cash.

Others found the ad offensive or felt it exposed the stream’s gravity inflationary crisis:

Translation: Someone tell Tortina to stop, this is stupid and unfunny. It’s not right that Tortina makes huge profits like it does every year and we have to borrow money to pay for it confu. This is completely idiotic.

Translation: This is so rude and in such poor taste, enough of this

Translation: I like Tortina and the things they come up with are always nice, but this confu installment plan something terrible and very tone deaf.

Many users, as below, criticized not the ad directly, but the wider economic downturn which they found to be a symptom of:

Translation: Tortina’s target market is upper and middle income people, so when they do something like that, it means the current situation is very sad.

As some users were quick to point out, Tortina isn’t the first food seller to offer customers the ability to pay for its products in installments – a trend driven by the growing accessibility non-essential and leisure purchases.

One user weighed the potential dangers of this installment trend, and warned that paying for necessities in installments could ultimately be a gateway to serious debt.

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