By Charlie Loran • Published: 06 Oct 2020 • 17:33
PUREGYM has apologised for shockingly inappropriate social media advertising, after being criticised for a post on a local Facebook page, advertising a workout titled “12 Years Of Slave” to celebrate Black History Month, which began on October 1.
The post was shared on the PureGym Luton & Dunstable Facebook page, which has 245 followers, on Monday, October 5, with the phrase: “Slavery was hard and so is this.”
It reads, “Entitled ’12YearsOfSlave’ (after the epic movie) this is our workout of the month designed by @mattsimpt to celebrate black history month. Slavery was hard and so is this.
“The twist to this is one rep of your first exercise, two of the second but before you move on to the third exercise which is also three reps you must start at the beginning to move on 😉 AND that’s how the entire workout goes.”
One Facebook user commented, “Please delete this, apologise and do better. It is incredibly inappropriate/offensive to liken a difficult workout (which, compared to slavery is a walk in the park…and undertaken voluntarily) with the slave trade.”
Another comment read, “Pure Gym must have an offensively tone-deaf marketing team thinking it is acceptable to compare a workout to slavery.”
“A big apology is deserved. This was a big mistake,” said another.
“I appreciate that local gym’s Facebook pages are probably run locally, but this is under your brand and you should probably fix this s***,” added another user.
The post also included the hashtag “#beforetherewasanyhistorytherewasblackhistory”.
PureGym responded to the criticism saying: “PureGym apologises unreservedly for a post made today by our gym in Luton. This post is wholly unacceptable, was not approved or endorsed by the company and was removed as soon as it was brought to our attention.
“Each of our 271 gyms has its own social media channels which are run locally. We take this matter extremely seriously and are urgently investigating how and why this post was made.”
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Manchester born mummy with a two year old diva (2020), living on the Costa del Sol for just short of a decade. Former chef and restaurateur, holistic health fanatic and lover of long words.
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