McDonald's drops "offensive" child bereavement ad
Fast-food chain McDonald's has withdrawn its new advert, which married the theme of child bereavement with a Filet-o-Fish, after causing widespread upset to viewers.
The company initially said that it had no plans to pull the advert. However, as the number of complaints on social media and among bereavement charities grew, McDonald's announced that the advert would be removed and apologised for the upset it had caused.
The advert was first screened last week and shows a boy asking his mother about his deceased father.
It turns out that the boy had little in common with his late dad, until he arrived with his mother at a McDonald's when it transpired that the boy enjoys a Filet-o-Fish in just the same way that his father did.
"That was your dad's favourite too," the mother tells her son in the advert.