Four white, blonde girls featured on a Christmas ad for department store Saga Falabella have earned the company a lot of criticism.

Falabella, which was started in Chile, had to take down the image after many complained that it was racist and discriminatory, notes the BBC.

The company apologized for upsetting people.

"According to our values, we respect and appreciate diversity in the broadest sense, and we ensure that there is no discrimination in our approach," the company said in a statement. "We regret that the design of one part of our commercial communication has caused conflict for not having adequately represented the diversity that is present in the rest of our campaign."

The company also told the BBC that the rest of their holiday campaign features children from Colombia, Chile, Peru and Argentina.

The controversial photo was first released on the company's Facebook page. It was meant to announce Falabella's new line of Disney dolls.

The comment section quickly filled up with messages that said the four girls chosen couldn't look more different than young Peruvian girls. Others slammed the company for having many pictures of models that look European.

"Many people started to say that the image looked like a Third Reich advertisement," Wilfredo Ardito, who works with the Citizens Fighting Against Racism organization, said. "Not even in Finland are there images like that."

It wasn't just social media users who criticized the company. People were also talking about the ad on the radio, television and in magazines.

Alberto Goachet, the vice president of the Peruvian advertising association, said he didn't believe the image supported Falabella's views, but that the country still needed to grow in some ways.

"In the last years, we have advanced in important ways in reflecting what being Peruvian means ..." he said. "We still need to keep moving forward. But in no way is that catalog a reflexion of what is happening in the Peruvian [advertising] industry or in Falabella."

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