Who doesn’t love a funny ad? And a pizza restaurant in Ohio in the US midwest thought it would add some wit to its latest outdoor advertising campaign when it emblazoned a billboard with the tag “Fat people are harder to kidnap”.
Unfortunately for the owners of East Of Chicago Pizza, not only did the joke fall flat, January’s also Human Trafficking Awareness Month, which led to the campaign being pulled.
Apparently, the pizza restaurant’s no stranger to controversy, it had previously run a campaign that read: “You will never have abs, so order pizza.”
Commenting on his latest ill-timed gag, East of Chicago Pizza owner Jeremy Clemetson said he’d used the “fat people are harder to kidnap” tag on his social media and had experienced no negative feedback.
“I thought it would be a good idea to put up some funny signs,” Clemetson told Fox 6 Now. “Most people seem to like them. I scour the internet for different signs that people have had. Sometimes I use them. Sometimes I reinvent my own. I also have got some of my funny signs from customers.”
Clemetson said he was unaware it was Human Trafficking Awareness Month and agreed to removed the billboard.
“I never even thought about it in that way, and as soon as I thought it, because kidnapping is not a joke, we are taking it down,” he said.
“I have seven kids of my own,” he continued. “I’m from the community here. I’ve lived here pretty much all of my life. I live in Barberton. I have strong roots here. I never even thought about it as the kidnapping aspect. I just meant it to be funny.”
