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Evidence has emerged that the office of Major of London considers a photo (PDF, page 47) depicting a group consisting of: a man, a woman, a boy and a girl, all of whom are of European ancestry, to not "represent real Londoners".
Looking at the ethnic breakdown of the capital of United Kingdom, showing Europeans (still) account for over 50% of the population, it seems premature to declare media depicting them to be unrepresentative.
But even if the natives were succesfully reduced to a minority, one would expect that they should be overrepresented. This would consistent with the mainstram present narrative around representation. That the fractions of ethnic groups in media shouldn't mirror those of the general population, but since people exhibit racial ingroup bias, minorities would be less happy if they didn't see people who look like them.
Defenders of this branding guide have claimed this has nothing to do with race of the people in the image, but I have to wonder if they would thought so, if a photo depicting what appears to be family of four Pakistanis would be caption as "Doesn't represent real Londoners." in a branding guide of a rigth-wing anti-immigration politician.
Especially in light of darwin's description of working enviroment of advertising companies. He claimed that anti-white jokes were common and that even he made them.
This will have been the decision of an agency designer. If someone had said, "what because they're all white?" they'd have said no, because it's a cheesy "too perfect" stock image. Someone senior or the client might have noted the possibility of negative headlines like the ones that have ensued, and then they'd have changed either the picture or the wording of the "don't". (I work in London agencies and know how all these conversations would likely go -- I also know this document won't necessarily have been looked at all that closely by anyone in a position of authority; brand books like this are often makework by agencies to pad their fees and to help brand managers accrue power to themselves. Once you've made something like this, every bit of communication goes through your office to check.)
Now, did the all-whiteness of the image contribute to the sense that this is a clear example of a cheesy "advertising of the past" type image? Very probably. It's what agencies are all keen to avoid.
To me the more interesting thing is that there are journalists scouring every little going-on in public life for evidence of wokeness. Standard culture war stuff I guess but it's a goddamn brand book, one of the least read types of document in the world and not usually a source of scandal!
Brand books are influential. Black people are pushed into every element of culture. Diversity doesn't mean mongolians, it means people who look like and are culturally african American. This is becoming a defining feature of culture in which add campaigns in places that barely have black people are full of them.
Why is it cheezy to show British people living in Britain? Isn't it more absurd to show it as an African nation? Is it cheezy when Eritreans don't have lots of white people in their adds?
The photo looks like something from your neighbour's facebook page. The family looks average and it isn't an overly set up shot.
Aside from the fact that there are lots black people in London, the brand book actually does feature a broad range of races. Plenty of white people, plenty of people who are non-white but not black, and yes plenty of black people. Few Mongolians, presumably, because there are no Mongolians in London.
Part of the problem is that they are right in front of the eye, which, combined with the general gaiety of the picture, makes them look like tourists.
Agreed. I started a count of white/black/Asian non-Khan faces, but it is skewed by the large-group pictures of "Positive and Optimistic" on p34 which is an almost-all-Asian group and of the African dance troupe on p43. But my casual impression is that the racial mix is only marginally less white than London, and probably not less white than young London (the ethnic minority population is a lot younger than the white population). The most obvious weirdness about the demographics of the photos, which I assume is a message that Khan's team intend to communicate but can't write down for legal reasons, is how young everyone except Khan is. There are zero photos showing Khan (who is 52) with someone who appears to be older than him, and only one picture without Khan (on p44) where a pensioner is in focus.
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I don't agree that it looks like a Facebook image, if you can't see it you, can't see it, but that screams Getty to me. Look at the carefully casual composition of multiple landmarks in the background, harmonious wardrobe and filtered sun. I bet you it's chosen from hundreds of images of the same people, look how all four of them are smiling at once. Hardly the cheesiest example ever but it seems more appropriate to me for overseas tourists than an audience of jaded Londoners.
Of course I agree that it should be fine to show the right image of an all white family but I think the nature of the decision making process often favours mixed ethnicities except when casts are very large. (If you've seen TV ads with multiple vignettes of different families, pretty common on British TV, that is where you're most likely to see more homogenous families depicted.)
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