Birmingham's own cock-up

Pictures of the wrong Birmingham on a council leaflet

The council's Blunder Award 2008 must go to Marketing Birmingham, the agency in charge of promoting the city. Now, imagine Newcastle City Council using pictures of their Oklahoma namesake on promotional leaflets. Or Manchester doing the same with pictures of the city in New Hampshire, US. That would be an interesting experiment. Some would even call it a hideous one.

Well, it's happened to Birmingham and, by all accounts, it was deliberate. Queried about 360,000 copies of a recycling leaflet posted around the city that used a skyline picture of Birmingham, Alabama, the council replied that it was no blunder. "We just wanted a generic skyline picture", was the response from a council spokesperson. At least no-one can accuse Birmingham City Council of lack of creativity.