Sterling Bank Plc has apologized to its numerous customers in the country over its provocative Easter greeting advertisement.
Abubakar Suleiman ,Chief Executive Officer of the bank,who conveyed the apology in a note to customers, admitted that content of the infographic and the message it contained was insensitive and failed to consider the very sober nature of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
He said while the message had no malicious intent, there is no place for content that fails to fully account for the feelings of billions of people all over the world.
He added: Our honest intent was to join our millions of customers in Nigeria and worldwide in celebrating this solemn event, but our execution fell short on this occasion.Our policies are clear on what constitutes acceptable customer communication, and this message should not have been released to our customers. On this occasion, our editorial processes fell short of our policy standards.
“As a responsible institution, we immediately withdrew the offensive material and initiated a review of the circumstances that led to this failure. We will further sensitize our workforce to ensure this unfortunate lapse in judgement never repeats itself.We thank you for your continued trust in us and apologize again for this unfortunate incident”
The Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria(APCON),had yesterday said it would sanction the commercial bank for exposing the advertising content to Nigerians in a provocative manner.
The body also said the bank didn’t submit the content for vetting before exposing it to Nigerians
