New Zealand online power company Powershop decided to promote its referral scene for existing customers with a photo-shopped ad featuring German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s face on the screen of an ATM for the “Bank of Greece”. She holds up her middle finger, making an obscene gesture. The ads slogan is: “Don’t be mean. Help your mates get their bills under control.” The doctored image was used in Powershop’s weekly usage emails and promoted through Twitter and Facebook.

Critics find the advertisement offensive on a number of levels. “It contains a gesture that the vast majority of New Zealanders would find offensive,” says University of Auckland senior marketing lecturer Dr. Bodo Lang. “From a more intellectual level, it simplifies a complex political issue and its misrepresenting what the facts are.”

Powershop also received some criticism on Facebook, where one user said: “You should not screw around such a topic. Do you have any idea how desperate [sic] the people in Greece are? It is disgusting that you make a joke out of it and in addition blame Germany to be responsible.”

Powershop chief executive Ari Sargent said the intention was not to offend with the ad.

Merkel is not the first who has used the stinkfinger…

Real or fake? Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis had said that this finger was ‘doctored’.

Nobody made much fuss over IMF Chief C. Lagarde’s middle finger during a news conference…