National Lottery Twitter campaign hijacked with offensive messages
A social media campaign from The National Lottery encouraging people to upload their names to receive a personalised message from Team GB athletes has turned sour after being hijacked with offensive and malicious messages.
National Lottery apologises after campaign is hijacked
It's almost identical to the disaster snacks' brand Walkers faced with its personalised 'Wave' campaign just a few months ago, where it inadvertently featured Rolf Harris, Stalin, serial killer Fred West and convicted criminal Josef Fritzlin Twitter ads.
The National Lottery's campaign, called #Represent, aimed to cement the bond between fans and athletes by sending personalised tweets from Olympians such as Greg Rutherford and Nicola Adams to their supporters who used the hashtag #IAmTeamGB.
Hijackers instead posted messages about the Hillsborough disaster, Madeline McCann and Bradley Lowery, who recently passed away, as well as uploading the names of criminals such as Jimmy Saville and Joesf Fritzl.
The National Lottery has now regained the control and posted an apology on Twitter.
"We are aware that some people are maliciously targeting our British Athletics Twitter campaign with offensive and abhorrent content," it said.
"We are dealing with this as quickly as possible and are hugely sorry for any offence caused by this malicious act."