MEXICO CITY: It could have been the height of diplomatic embarrassment for Mexico's president.

When Enrique Pena Nieto hosted towering King Felipe of Spain this week, it was a tongue-in-cheek paint ad ridiculing his 10- inch height deficit that grabbed the headlines.

On Wednesday, Mexican paint company Comex posted on Twitter a digitally-altered photograph of the president standing on one of its paint pots, giving him a leg up over the monarch under the banner "una pintura de altura," or "a paint of stature."

Comex apologized on Thursday for the photograph, deleting the post after it had been heavily retweeted. It said the Tweet was published "without the appropriate approvals".