Is It Okay For Brands To Tweet About A Celebrity's Death?

By Jasmine Payoute

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Cheerios tweeted a purple "Rest in peace" sign with a cheerio in place of the dot above the letter i. It tagged the tweet with #prince. A storm of angry comments followed immediately.

So, this pans the question, why?

After an investigation, it seems that some fans of the pop icon felt the tweet was an example of shameless branding by the company. Fans felt as if the company used Prince's death to market their products. Some even went as far as to tweet things like this:

But others didn't see a problem.

While Cheerios may have garnered the most attention, the company was far from alone. Several brands took to social media with tributes to Prince of their own. After news broke of the popular musician's death, marketers used the moment to show their brands while showing their respects to the beloved artist. Here are just a few:

The Cheerios tweet however, that has gone viral, has since been taken down. General Mills said it wanted to "acknowledge the loss of a musical legend in its hometown."

"But we quickly decided that we didn't want the tweet to be misinterpreted, and removed it out of respect for Prince and those mourning," the company said in a statement emailed to CNNMoney.

But, in the end many fans feel you should mourn how you feel fit.