A UK food truck company has taken down its advertisements featuring the missing child Madeleine McCann after receiving complaints about the joke used in its marketing on Mother's Day.
The advertisements that ran on the company's social media accounts featured images of Madeleine and her mother Kate overlaid with 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 with the text at the bottom of the post: "Happy Mother's Day to all the mums."
Madeleine McCann is a British child who went missing during a family holiday in Portugal in 2007. Her disappearance is one of the most reported missing person cases, still gaining worldwide attention over a decade later.
The advertisement was reported to the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) which told the company the ad, which was already removed, must never appear again as they were likely to cause "unjust distress and serious and widespread offence".
The ASA said due to the high profile of Madeleine's disappearance case they considered the images as "instantly recognisable" to many people and that referencing a missing child was likely to be offensive.
The authority also found that the combination of the ad being posted on Mother's Day added to the shock factor and offensiveness of the ad.
"We considered these elements further trivialised the circumstances surrounding Madeleine's disappearance and made light of a distressing news story concerning reports of child abduction and serious crime."
Due to the concerning nature of the ads, the authority also suspended the company's social media account while they carried out their investigation.
People on social media are calling to boycott the company over its "disgusting" advert.
"If you've seen the @otleyburger advert than ran over Mothers Day, you'll never buy from it again. How on earth anyone thought this was a good idea, God only knows. Disgusting!" one person wrote
"The Otley Burger Company should be utterly ASHAMED. Using the abduction and probable murder of a child in order to sell burgers. What the hell have things come to?" Another person tweeted.
