Berlin advertisement: You don't wear a mask, here is a woman who salutes with her middle finger

Berlin's tourism agency Visit Berlin has released an advertisement featuring an elderly woman showing the middle finger to those who refuse to wear masks. Above the image of the woman, the poster says, "A finger-wag for all those without a mask: we stick to corona rules." However, the ad drew criticism from social media, with some calling it insulting.

The motif with the angry pensioner is part of a broader campaign that launched in September with a series of typographic posters in German, English, Turkish and Arabic, with similarly offhand but slightly less aggressive slogans such as “Mask on. To keep the lights from going off.”

In the past, Berlin’s public transport company BVG has won numerous prizes for an ad campaign that embraces rather than apologises for the capital’s image as the shambolic outlier in a county priding itself on efficiency and respectability.

The local newspaper Tagesspiegel said the campaign may have already achieved its aim, however. “In spite of everything, it’s easier to understand than the nth extension of the umpteenth edict,” the newspaper said in its newsletter.

Visit Berlin said it was not currently planning to use the image with the angry pensioner again.