Dubai gym to donate sum to charity after Auschwitz ad fiasco

A Dubai gym that caused outrage after using an image of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz to advertise fitness programs has promised to donate Dh3, 900 to an undecided charity.

The ad, which featured a black and white photograph of the camp that was used in World War II to house Jews by Nazi Germany, featured the caption: “Kiss your calories goodbye”.

The Dubai based gym, the Circuit Factory ran the poster as part of an online campaign to advertise its programs, but the ad backfired as it created more outrage on social media forums like Facebook and Twitter.

The gym removed the offending images but not without social media users expressed their outrage. One Twitter user wrote: “Apparently you lost your brain trying to lose weight.”

Phil Parkinson, the company’s owner told The National on Tuesday: “We made a terrible mistake with the advert and this is we feel is the right thing to do” he said when announcing the decision to donate to charity.

“I have contacted a British group to help find a suitable charity and I want to send this money to the right people as soon as possible,” he said.
The gym has previous ads with the slogan “Your body is a work of art. Punish it” alongside a toilet full of feces and accompanying word “Bootcamps”.

Parkinson also apologized through the company’s Twitter account saying, “Apologies for the insane poster campaign that was put up this morning … the creative guy has been told where to go”.

Images of Auschwitz have been used before but for different reasons. The international environmentalist organization Greenpeace used the image of the concentration camp with whales trapped in it to relay the message of threat posed by the mammals.

(Additional writing by Harry Hughes D'Aeth)