Washington D.C.-based burger chain, Z-Burger, apologized Sunday for an “objectionable advertisement” that used a photo of American journalist James Foley being executed by ISIS.
A picture of a burger was superimposed on top of the photo, which was from 2014. The Twitter caption read, “When you say you want a burger and someone says okay lets hit McDonalds,” and the caption on the photo read, “You disgrace me” in yellow lettering.
Amazed by the bad decisions that went into this ISIS-themed post from DC burger chain @zburger pic.twitter.com/ERLWI1xkxm
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 23, 2018
Though the company’s Twitter account often uses meme-like advertisements, this one caused considerable outrage. Z-burger took down the tweet and posted several apologies, two of which were from the owner, Peter Tabibian. In it, Tabibian said the ad was created by a contracted marketing company identified in a later tweet as Valor Media.
Tabibian called the ad “a post in very poor taste that was not approved by me before being uploaded to our Twitter account.”
“I have taken immediate steps to ensure that this never happens again, and our customers have my promise to ensure that established controls over the placement of amateur promotional posts on our Twitter page are more closely followed, immediately,” Tabibian continued. He added, “We…hope that our loyal customers can overlook an error in judgement.”
A message from our owner – Peter pic.twitter.com/09yMYBYBHK
— zburger (@zburger) July 22, 2018
Valor Media also penned an apology.
— zburger (@zburger) July 22, 2018
Despite the apology, several people responded to the tweets with disapproval.
Get a new social media team
— Pickles256 (@Pickles2566) July 23, 2018
No apology to the Foley family?
— Nathan Kohlenberg (@nkohlenberg) July 22, 2018