An advertising and branding magazine has admitted to a “terrible inacuracy” after they described a Toyota/Saatchi & Saatchi marketing event in the area as part of the new “whitened image” of the area.
Toyota commissioned art group Knit the City to knit street decorations on Ferndale Rd as part of its ‘Positive Power’ campaign, run by advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi.
In a report on the event, online ‘brand magazine’ Popsop said of Brixton: “The district, which used to be quite an unpleasant part of the city in the 80s (it was associated with bombing and riots then), has whitened its image and become a nice, multicultural area—and the new project adds another lively and optimistic touch to the transformed atmosphere of this place.”
The article was written by a Russian journalist who has English as a second language, but the implication that a “whitened image of Brixton” would be a positive thing remains extremely offensive at a time of heightening gentrification and changing demographics in Brixton. The “bombing” mentioned appears to be a confusion with the tragic nail bombing outside Iceland in 1999.
An urban 75 thread was set up in protest at the article here.
After a request from Brixton Blog, Popsop Magazine has now removed this paragraph from their article. They said: “Thank you for your message. That’s a terrible inaccuracy that has been just corrected.” They also tweeted: “We are sorry, no racism was meant there. Just the wrong wording and factual inaccuracy”.
I enjoy what you guys are usually up too. This type of clever work and
coverage! Keep up the awesome works guys I’ve incorporated you guys to my personal blogroll.
I reckon the folks at urban75 must be getting well pissed off with you guys stealing their stories and never crediting them. I’ve lost count of the stories that you guys have ‘picked up’ from there but then failed to credit/ It really is rather poor.
Hi Steve, we always try to credit u75 as much as possible. We actually got this story from a tweet someone sent us this morning and followed up with an email to the magazine. I will now add a link to the u75 thread though as this would be useful anyway. Thanks for your comment.