This one is for my good mate Gerry McCusker (who’s also interested to hear more about your favourite PR disasters of 2008, by the way!)
According to The Local,
Petrol station chain Esso and coffee company Tchibo have stopped an advertising campaign after finding out the slogan also hung above the entrance to a Nazi concentration camp, daily Frankfurter Rundschau reported on Wednesday.
The firms caused a stir by using the phrase Jedem das Seine, a version of “to each his own,” which also hung above the entrance to Buchenwald, a Nazi concentration camp near the city of Weimar.
The signs were either out of "unsurpassed tastelessnes" or an example of "total historical ignorance," Salomon Korn, vice president of the German Jewish Council, told the paper.
Tchibo and Esso aren’t the first companies to make the blunder. Telephone company Nokia, grocery chain Rewe, Burger King and Merkur Bank have all fought PR disasters after using the phrase, which was originally coined by Roman philosopher Cato 2,000 years ago, in ad campaigns, the paper said.
Ooopsies!
