WARNING: Some readers may find this content upsetting.
We know that advertisers have few scruples, but this has to be the most offensive ad yet.
Brazilian swim school FitFlex Aquacenter took out an ad in a local newspaper using the shocking photo of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, who was found lying face down on a Turkish beach last year.
The child drowned during a failed attempt to leave behind war-torn Syria and reach Greece by boat with relatives.
Academy bosses at the Brazilian swim school wrote alongside the photo: "Nine months to be born, three years to grow and two minutes to be alone and drown in a minute."
A message alongside a larger photo of a healthy smiling toddler swimming underwater in a pool above the photo of Aylan read: "Swimming isn't a luxury. It's a necessity for children's development and security."
The shocking ad, published in a weekly local paper in the city of Esteio in southern Brazil, went viral after it was picked up by a Facebook group run by ad professionals.
Appalled marketing student Gael Do Val wrote: "It makes total sense. If your child learns to swim at this academy he will be such a brilliant f**king student that he will be able to cross the sea at night in winter."
Meanwhile, enraged mother Ellen Ribeiro added: "What ridiculous people. Taking advantage of the image of a dead child to sell something. This is unacceptable."
Joao Marcelo Guizzo, one of the hundreds of outraged Facebook users to respond, added: “Whoever came up with this ad hasn’t got any feelings.”
Academy director Vinicius Maciel confirmed last night the swim school was behind the ad but said that he was surprised at the criticism.
Apparently, the idea had been to raise parents' awareness of the issue of children drowning.
However, he confirmed that he would not be using the controversial picture of Aylan again, due to the offense it has caused to date.
In a statement issued today which only went halfway to calming public anger, the academy said:
“At the end of February, following the tragic death from drowning of a child near to the academy, we decided to do something to highlight this problem which is when we published this notice in a local paper.
“We were trying to show that children don’t only die in wars and that children close to us can accidentally die from drowning.
“In Brazil the second cause of accidental child deaths is drowning and yet we speak very little about this problem. Every four days a child drowns in our country."
"We are aware this ad went viral because of the negative reaction to it," he added.
"We did something to alert people to a problem and made a mistake but at least we did something."
"We ask others who are also in a position to do something, to divulge ways in which lives can be saved in our cities."
"At no time did we intend to disrespect anyone."
