On September 11, the Katinat brand posted on its fanpage about joining hands with the North. Accordingly, this brand will donate 1,000 VND for every glass of water sold in the system from September 12 to September 30 to accompany the North in overcoming the consequences of natural disasters.

“Katinat proactively deducts from actual revenue, the action is not a call for action and comes entirely from the desire to contribute a little bit, helping our compatriots overcome this difficult period. All the money deducted will be used to contribute to overcoming the consequences of natural disasters, and will be made public in each phase with a specific implementation plan in the coming time,” the brand affirmed.

However, this program of Katinat immediately received a strong reaction from the online community. After more than 20 hours of posting on the fanpage, more than 65,000 people left angry icons under the post.

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Katinat's program of donating 1,000 VND for each glass of water sold to support the people of the North has made the online community express outrage.

Many people believe that this beverage chain is taking advantage of the difficult situation of the people in the North to promote its brand and stimulate business activities. Moreover, the program's "closing date" of September 30 is also not appropriate, because the relief for people in storm and flood areas is urgent.

Under Katinat's post, many people left comments saying "instead of buying a glass of water for 60,000-70,000 VND to contribute 1,000 VND to support the Northern compatriots, you can skip drinking a glass of water and then transfer that amount to support the Northern compatriots immediately".

Faced with backlash from the community, the Katinat brand had to post an apology to customers on its fanpage.

The beverage brand also announced that it has contributed VND1 billion directly to the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front - Central Relief Committee, instead of deducting and transferring each day based on the actual number of glasses of water served as planned in the program.

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Immediately afterwards, Katinat had to apologize to customers. Photo: Katinat

“This amount is expected to be drawn from an estimated 1 million cups of water that will be served in 19 days across the system.” On October 1, Katinat will update the actual amount drawn from September 12-30 and make it public. In case it exceeds 1 million cups of water sold, the beverage brand will supplement and continue to contribute to the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front.

Talking to PV.VietNamNet , Mr. Ha Hong Viet - CEO & Founder of Sellator Media and Strategy Joint Stock Company, said that donating a small amount of money from product sales to support has been applied by many businesses up to now. Katinat is a fairly large beverage chain. With about 60 stores and current customers, donating 1,000 VND/cup of drink sold by Katinat is also a significant amount of money to support flood victims in the North.

However, “the way you give is better than what you give.” Mr. Viet believes that Katinat has acted in a tactless and irresponsible manner. Flood relief is urgent, but this brand has to wait for 1 glass of water to be sold before donating 1,000 VND to support.

Not to mention, Katinat is showing everyone that customers must buy products from this brand in order to donate money. Therefore, when announcing the program, Katinat immediately received a strong reaction from the community, which is understandable. This is also a lesson for Katinat in particular and Vietnamese businesses in general when doing charity work.