Advertising agency Young & Rubicam is condemning its own TV commercial, a spot that links Argentina’s dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands to the 2012 London Olympics.
The commercial reasserts Argentina’s claim to the islands and shows the country’s field hockey captain Fernando Zylberberg training for the games by running through the islands’ capital of Stanley.
Y&R’s Buenos Aires office created the ad. The Y&R network of agencies is based in New York, but WPP, the holding company that owns it, is based in the United Kingdom.
Young & Rubicam’s apologized in a statement Friday, saying the ad’s creators behaved “in a manner that is unacceptable to our company.” (See below for the full statement.)
The ad agency says it has asked the Argentine government to pull the spot.
Its statement does not mention how much Young & Rubicam was paid for the commercial, or if it plans to return the money.
Y&R Statement, issued May 4.
It has come to our attention that our agency in Argentina created an ad for the Argentine government that has deeply offended many people in the UK and around the world. We strongly condemn this work and have asked the Argentine government to pull the spot.
While we don’t believe it was ever the intention of the ad’s creators to desecrate a war memorial, they behaved in a manner that is unacceptable to our company. Furthermore it is against our policy to be involved in anything that is politically motivated. In addition, this spot was also offensive to the Olympics spirit. Whatever it was the creators set out to highlight, what they produced is contrary to everything that we as a company stand for.
We are deeply regretful for the pain this ad has caused and apologize to the many who have been rightly disturbed by it, as have we.
