UNAUTHORIZED AD (AP) – Morning commuters in New York walk past a Weatherproof Garment Company advertisement depicting United States President Barack Obama standing along the Great Wall of China.

NEW YORK (AFP) - Passersby in New York gawked Thursday at a huge, unauthorized advertisement for jackets featuring President Barack Obama – and the White House was not amused.

The billboard for Weatherproof Garment Company looms over Times Square, showing a rugged and determined-looking president in the brand’s dark jacket while on a visit to the Great Wall in China during an official trip last year.

“A leader in style,” it says underneath.

New Yorkers and tourists snapped photos, or just stared at the poster, which stood out even in the neon jungle of New York’s teeming center.

Some applauded the aesthetics of the most photogenic president in years against a stunning landscape.

“He looks nice. He’s president, but he looks nice,” one man said.

But others thought the ad bad taste.

“It’s disrespectful. He’s a young man with a beautiful family, but I don’t see why he should be portrayed in any other way than as our president,” Jo Ponsonby, a former bar tender, 59, said after taking a picture on his throwaway camera.

With a tireless schedule of press conferences, speeches and public appearances, Obama is an almost permanent media presence. He pops up daily on everything from cable news channels to low-grade gossip tabloids.

But Weatherproof’s use of the image – a photograph shot by the Associated Press news agency during the China trip – angered the White House just a day after an animal rights group used First Lady Michelle Obama’s image in a campaign.

“The White House has a longstanding policy disapproving of the use of the president and first family’s name and likeness for advertising purposes,” spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

A White House official said the administration had contacted “these organizations to ask that they stop using these advertisements as they misleadingly suggest the approval or endorsement of the President, First Family or White House that it does not have.”

In the case of Michelle Obama, her image appeared in an anti-fur photo montage of US celebrities, also including TV hostess Oprah Winfrey, by the group PETA. “Fur-Free and Fabulous!” the ad declared.