UBS and Newsweek apologise for insensitive advertisement
Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, and Newsweek magazine have apologised for an advertisement which appeared to joke about the crash of a Concorde jet near Paris last week.
Newsweek said the decision to print the advertisement in the middle of a special report about the crash was entirely its own mistake. A spokesman said the magazine had checked for airline advertisements, but had not thought of screening banking advertisements.
The double-page advertisement for UBS shows a technician checking the tyres on an aircraft, above a caption that reads: “Success is more than take off and landing.”
The advertisement appeared in 325,000 copies of the magazine.
The text of the advertisement includes the line: “Details count. Aim high but don’t lose sight of the nuts and bolts.”
UBS said it had tried to stop the advertisement appearing after the crash that killed 114 people. A spokesman said the bank had not been able to reach its advertising agencies in time.
swissinfo with agencies
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.