We can't predict paper layout - OUTsurance

2013-02-19 18:21

(Gus Silber, via Twitter)

Cape Town - OUTsurance on Tuesday apologised for any offence caused by a front-page advertisement in The Star, featuring a legless man below a story and graphic of murder-accused Paralympian Oscar Pistorius, saying that it could not have foreseen that it would have been placed directly under that particular story.

Pistorius is accused of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria in the early hours on Thursday.

The OUTsurance advertisement for disability cover was placed on the lower, right-hand side of the page, immediately below a photograph and story about the bail hearing of double amputee Pistorius.

The advertisement shows a pair of legs from the waist down with the left leg "missing" from the knee down, with the text of the advertisement shaped to fill in the "missing" portion of the leg.

"While we were aware that the chosen advertisement would appear on the front page of the newspaper, we neither could have predicted, nor instructed the newspaper to particularly use it alongside the headline story they chose to publish," the company said in a statement.

"The front page of The Star on Tuesday 19 February was dominated by the unfortunate events surrounding double amputee Oscar Pistorius. 

"We did not foresee the potential light in which the advertisement could be interpreted."

The advertisement was supplied to The Star newspaper at midday on Thursday 14 February as part of our normal course of business, OUTsurance said

It said the advertisement had been created in October 2012 as a part of a print campaign highlighting its disability benefits product.

OUTsurance again apologised for any offence caused, after earlier tweeting an apology after the advertisement sparked outrage on Twitter.

Vaughan Warburton tweeted: Ah come now OUTsurance..... Really?

Mhlangabezi Songwevu tweeted: Disgusting. Shame on You. Outsurance this is tasteless.

Others didn't believe the insurer's tweeted apology.

Bernard Bergstedt tweeted: Sorry I don't buy it scrappy apology. why place this specific ad on the very day Oscar appears in court. Premeditated.

- Outsurance media release.

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