Paddy Power courts controversy again with lorry telling immigrants to 'jump in the back – but only if you're good at sport'
Notorious bookmaker Paddy Power’s latest PR stunt has made light of illegal immigrants boarding lorries in order to enter the UK by encouraging them to do so as long as they are good at sport.
The Irish betting firm has tweeted a picture of a lorry at Dover which features UK based athletes including Andy Murray, Mo Farah and Raheem Sterling alongside a caption which reads: “Immigrants, jump in the back! (But only if you’re good at sport)”
The company, which is renowned for its near the knuckle marketing approach, unveiled the new ads this morning in a tweet which read: “Good at sport? Then climb aboard” with a photo of one of the lorries at a ferry port.
Good at sport? Then climb aboard... pic.twitter.com/YFWjB2wJhU
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) July 2, 2015
A barrage of comments surrounding the ad followed and included some condemnation on the subject choice. One comment attached to the tweet questioned the appropriateness of the theme saying “is this for real? Human misery is funny?” Another read “Gas !! Let's all laugh At Human catastrophe”.
Many of the comments appeared to have found the ad humorous while questioning the appropriateness, one summed it up as “brilliant…I think” before saying “not sure if I find this funny or in bad taste”.
The ad is likely to receive more attention in the coming days after it was retweeted over 1000 times in under an hour.