Luxury menswear retailer Harry Rosen has apologized for an advertisement that played on Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant stance.
A flyer mailed out to select homes in the Vancouver area features a photo of the U.S. presidential candidate saying, “If not for Harry’s private sale, I’d wall off Canada too.”
The reference to Trump’s controversial vow to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border did not sit well with some Harry Rosen customers. Some of them told CTV Vancouver that using Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric in an ad was especially insensitive at a time when Canada is preparing to accept thousands of Syrian refugees.
The company said the ad was simply poking fun at Trump and was designed before the refugee debate heated up in Canada.
“We’re really trying to have fun with, I guess you’d call it his absurd xenophobic proposals to wall off another country,” CEO Larry Rosen told CTV Vancouver.
He said that while some customers found it “very funny,” others “have said ‘associating yourself Trump in any way is not good’ so I’ve apologized to them.
“We’re big supporters of Canada accepting new refugees and this has nothing to do with that,” he added.
This is not the first time a Harry Rosen ad has caused a stir. In the past, the retailer has raised eyebrows for using images of Canadian politicians such as Stephen Harper, Jim Flaherty and Justin Trudeau without permission.
With a report from CTV Vancouver
