Adidas advertising campaign mocked on Twitter for embarrassing Colombia spelling mistake

Adidas has a history for its slick advertising campaigns but its latest might leave a few heads in hands after billboards and posters featured a glaring spelling error of the Colombia national football team that read 'Columbia'.

The embarrassing misspelling of a nation it has sponsored for years was an own goal no social media user could ignore and soon enraged fans flocked to Twitter to shake their heads at what some were calling an "epic fail".

The sportswear company's campaign was promoting the new home shirt for 2016 for the Copa America tournament and had star players James Rodriguez, Juan Cuadrado, Frank Fabra and Edwin Cardona donning the new shirt while the erroneously spelt 'Columbia' was emblazoned beneath.

It's crazy to think that with Adidas' not-so-modest advertising organisation nobody managed to spot the typo and it passed countless pairs of eyes – all the way from design to print and even when being installed.

The error has left the German company red-faced and a spokesperson swiftly put out a statement apologising for the oversight: "We value our partnership with the Colombian Football Federation and apologise for our mistake. We removed these graphics and are quickly installing new versions."

The spelling mistake only affected posters in the US and as the company works to take down the epic fail we can only imagine one certain Oregon-based rival is rolling on the floor laughing.