Madeleine McCann burger van adverts on Mother's Day banned by watchdog
20.04.2022 - 10:49
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
Ads for a burger van that ran over Mother's Day making light of missing Madeleine McCann have been banned for causing offence.
Posts on The Otley Burger Company's social media accounts on March 27 read: "Burgers for dinner?" above images of Madeleine and her mother Kate McCann, with further text stating: "With burgers this good, you'll leave your kids at home. What's the worst that could happen."
In the background a man was shown running with a smaller image of Madeleine in his hands, followed by the further line: "Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there."
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received three complaints that the ads were likely to cause distress and serious or widespread offence.
The ASA said it considered the nature of the content to be of such a concern that it asked the relevant social media platforms - Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - to remove the content and suspend the account pending its investigation.
The Leeds -based takeaway has around 7,000 followers on Instagram.
Responding to the complaints, The Otley Burger Company said all the ads had been removed and would not be appearing again.
Meta said they had reviewed the content in the Instagram post and had removed it for violating their policies. They also undertook a broader review of the Instagram account, removed further content and placed restrictions on the account.
Twitter said the tweet had been deleted.
The ASA noted that ads must not contain anything that is likely to cause serious or widespread offence, and advertisers must not use a shocking claim or image merely to attract attention.
The ASA said: "The disappearance of Madeleine McCann had been a high-profile and long-running media story which remained widely known. We