A Dubai gym's promotional campaign that used an image of a Nazi concentration camp has ignited a firestorm of criticism.
The picture shows train tracks leading to Auschwitz, where millions of Jews were murdered, along with the words "Kiss your calories goodbye." The tasteless ad was one in a series of 10 photos posted on Facebook.
Phil Parkinson, founder of The Circuit Factory gym, has since removed the ad and issued apologies on Facebook and Twitter.
Parkinson tweeted that "the guy who created it isn't with us any more."
Reaction on social media, however, was predictably harsh.
"What the HELL Circuit Factory thinking when they launched this campaign?" tweeted rachelannmorris.
"The circuit factory epic fail ad. Apparently you lost your brain while trying to lose weight. #GoDie," tweeted AlisonLehr, along with an image of the ad.
"To use images of any genocide to advertise a product is, at best, almost unbelievably inept," Alexander McNabb, head of Spot On Public Relations in Dubai, told The Media Line.
Inept or not, the use of the offensive ad apparently paid dividends - Parkinson said the controversy has been great for business.
"A huge number people have researched or Googled ... our YouTube channel has shot up, our group page has got an hundred extra members in minutes and we have had about five times as many enquiries as before," he told arabianbusiness.com. "It has got to the point I am nervous that I can't cater for demand."
The Anti-Defamation League acknowledged Parkinson's apology, but also expressed its displeasure in a statement: "We are increasingly troubled by both the ignorance and mindset of a generation that appears to be so distant from a basic understanding of the Holocaust that it seems acceptable to use this horrific tragedy as a gimmick to bring attention to promoting losing weight."
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