Nude ad irks locals

CASTLEBAY, Scotland, March 4 (UPI) -- Residents of the Scottish island of Barra said they were angered when a tourism promoter filmed a scene of naked men running on the island's busiest beach.

Locals said shooting for the video, which London-based agency Seventy Seven PR concocted to promote Scottish adventure tourism company VisitScotland, took place at a time when the beach, which doubles as a airplane runway, was full of people, The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

"Two flights had just come and both planes were still on the strand there," The Very Rev. Angus John Provost MacQueen told The Guardian.

The video, which was to be a viral advertisement on Web sites YouTube, Bebo and Facebook, featured a group of male surfers shedding their clothes and running in the sand.

"Many people were there and they were outraged. Would you like people going stark naked running down your runway? We don't want to attract this kind of tourism to Barra. We are overbooked in the summer as it is," he said.

A VisitScotland spokeswoman said the ad was canceled after villagers complained.

"There was some feedback from the local community that they were offended by the filming. As soon as we heard that, we realized we'd misjudged that and destroyed that bit of filming."