Tuesday 18 September 2007

Bell Canada - Inadvertently referencing the Holocaust

Bell Canada, a major phone company accidentally featured a punk-rock reference to the Holocaust in a set of billboard advertisements placed in Vancouver, Columbia and Toronto which has a large Jewish community and many Holocaust survivors.

In small versions of the designs, checked by executives, it was not clear that a punky young woman in the advert was wearing a badge spelling the controversial title of a song by the Sex Pistols, 'Belsen was a gas' which refers to Nazi Germany's Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. When the adverts were blown up to full size, the button inscription could clearly be read.

On realising their mistake, Bell Canada apologised and removed over ten advertising boards and spokesman Mark Langton said "Obviously, we would never depict such an offensive slogan in our advertising." - although clearly, they did.

Sources: ReutersAdrants