The advertising campaign launched by a housing block Rodina (which stands for ‘Motherland’) in Yekaterinburg has shocked both the local citizens and the more conservative admen. Protest petitions asking for an investigation and the punishment of the culprits have already been placed with Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service. Apparently, the painful fines for the ad agency’s creative product will have to be paid by its partners.

The ad campaign in question included introducing a series of billboards around the city that read, ‘We sell our motherland and pay for children’ and ‘We save money on kids’.

Now the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s regional division feels such slogans are offense-inducing and feature a number of official state symbols in an inappropriate way. The spokeswoman for the service Marina Yusupova says the culprits might have to pay between 100,000 RUR and 500,000 RUR in fines.

In fact, visitors to the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s website fully shared the organization’s indignation, as over 80% of respondents surveyed online said they disliked the ads.

Technically speaking, the primary offender is now the distributor of the billboards only, that is, Stolmann & Katz Advertising Agency, whereas the advertisements themselves were actually designed by an agency called Red Pepper.