Arby’s unveiled a new series of ads touting its freshness and inadvertantly angered a good portion of Iowa in the process. The ads took rival chain Subway to task for having its meat products sliced in Iowa and not on the back of each restaurant, like Arby’s.

The ad was uploaded to YouTube, and angry Iowans quickly stormed the comments section in defense of the state and the Mount Pleasant slicing facility, reports Media Bistro. “Iowa isn’t a Third World country!” says one. “Slamming Iowa wasn’t cool since most Iowans are farmers that help your company out. Same goes for Midwest in general,” says another.

Arby’s chief marketing officer, Russ Klein, issued a personal apologize to those who were offended by the ad and promised to revise the ad.

“I want to extend my sincerest apologies over offending the good people of Iowa as a result of our new advertising campaign, “Slicing up the Truth about Freshness”. I am responsible for Arby’s advertising, and I approved the work in question,” he said in a statement.

“Please know that in no way was the advertising ever designed to disparage the state of Iowa, but rather the advertising was meant to dramatize the distance between Subway’s slicing facilities and any given Subway restaurant. Odd as it may sound to you…our line of thinking was that we owed viewers all of the information in terms of accurately depicting the proximity of Subways’ slicing facility and any given Subway restaurant. Nonetheless, we did not intend to offend any Iowans; so I owe you a personal and professional apology accordingly.

Our advertising was revised to remove any reference to Iowa, within 48 hours of understanding the seriousness of the matter. The revised commercials have been trafficked to all TV stations…and should be on air this week.”

Source: Media Bistro, Des Moines Register