Pub in deep shit for Facebook ad asking "would you punch your ex for a steak?"
Remember the pub that offered to pay for you’d headstone if you died during their monster burger challenge?! Well they’ve landed themselves in hot water again after releasing an ad that asked punters: “Would you punch your ex for a steak?”
The ad was released on The George Pub Bar & Grill Facebook page and included a photo of a humongous steak. It was apparently meant to be a bit of a joke but as a business you can’t really go around telling people to punch their exes because some moron might actually do it. Now the pub’s landlord, Craig Harker, is being accused of mocking domestic violence. Bit harsh considering it was clearly just a shit joke but anti-violence charity White Ribbon Scotland waded in and tweeted this:
It’s a shocking approach to advertising that any business would offer free food as an incentive to undertake violence against an ex partner.
It’s not a joke, it’s misogynistic attitudes in practice.
Women’s Aid head of PR Teresa Parker added:
Just shocking, domestic abuse is no laughing matter.
Not funny to joke about punching your ex in the face, especially to the many survivors of domestic abuse living every day in fear of their ex. With 1 woman getting killed every 4 days in the UK, they are scared for a reason.
The post was even reported to the police, who spoke to the landlord and contacted the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) to explain that it has breached its code of conduct. Damn, that escalated quickly. Craig doesn’t seem too fussed by it all though, and had this to say:
Anyone who took offence simply isn’t our clientele and we know our audience.
To top the madness off, the police have then taken on the request of the MP and are actually investigating The George FB page.
Surely with police cuts they have more important things to concentrate on, like the local issues with drugs, knives and thefts – the actual issues in the town.
Now the police licencing and council licensing have tag teamed together to try and remove our licence for alcohol and placed us under review.The whole scenario is absolutely laughable when we have never had a police incident in the whole six years of running
I agree it wasn’t the smartest marketing move but it’s a bit strong to get the police involved. Surely an apology on Facebook would have sufficed?! I guess we’ll have to see how things go from here and how far the local authority to prepared to take it. I quite fancy a steak now!
