(Image source: The Huffington Post)

BY GARY COTTON


Getting people motivated to go to the gym can be a challenge, but a certain gym in Dubai took it way too far. Here’s WPIX.


“’The picture shows the train tracks leading to Nazi death camp Auschwitz along with the slogan ‘Kiss Your Calories Goodbye.’ Would you believe it is a part of an ad campaign to get people to the Circuit Factory gym in Dubai.”


The ad was pulled after being posted on Facebook for a couple of hours, but that was still long enough to start an Internet inferno. Circuit Gym’s founder quickly took to Twitter to try to cool the blaze.
 

He apologized, but added it was the ad agency’s idea, and that the ad wasn’t checked properly before being posted. He went on to say ...
https://twitter.com/#!/CircuitFactory


“The creative guy has been told where to go.”
https://twitter.com/#!/CircuitFactory/status/154164519931887617

Regardless, experts on WCBS say Circuit Factory can’t shift all the blame to ad agencies -- pointing out the gym’s track record.


ANCHOR: “Companies hire advertising agencies purposely to push the envelope, you see it in Times Square all the time, but to use human suffering to promote your brand?
...
ANCHOR: “In different campaigns the Circuit Factory used bulimia to try to garner attention.”
...
ANALYST: “People in advertising think that any notoriety, any publicity is going to be good publicity, but to use this type of imagery or that type of message, which is a horrible message to send, is inappropriate.”


And a Middle Eastern ad expert agreed telling The Media Line that even from a publicity standpoint--this doesn’t make any sense.


“Few Europeans would fail to find the use of images of somewhere as horrific as Auschwitz … to promote weight loss deeply offensive. You can only wonder at someone,  somewhere thinking it would be clever.”