A strange case of idencity theft from an agency specialising in luxury content
With the amount of media coverage Dubrovnik has been getting in recent years, especially this last summer, you would think everyone around the globe has the iconic landscape etched in their memory. The most famous Croatian city made numerous international headlines, getting featured in The New York Times, The Guardian and Vogue, to name only a few renowned publications which showered Dubrovnik with praise in the last couple of months. Whether you have been to the Pearl of the Adriatic or not, you surely know what it looks like by now:
Stunning.
What it doesn’t look like, however, is this:
This is Mostar, a historic gem located in Bosnia and Herzegovina that’s best known for its gorgeous Old Bridge that connects two shores of the Neretva river.
You’ll notice the two cities don’t bear a resemblance beyond the fact they both house majestic fortification architecture. And yet, some have failed to see the difference: the British luxury agency named Alux (self-described as ‘the best luxury website in the world, where future billionaires come to get inspired’) managed to get the two mixed up.
A month ago, Alux came out with a video titled ’15 Things You Didn’t Know About Croatia’, aiming to explore the country they dubbed ‘one of the best holiday destinations in the world’.
The video opens with an informative intro accompanied by mesmerising alternating shots filmed in various parts of Croatia, followed by a line of interesting facts about the country’s lucrative industries, historical figures and inventions originating from Croatia. And then, not long into the video, there’s fact no.3, informing the viewers that Croatia has served as the ‘set design of many famous films and TV shows’, filmed on locations where ‘you can expect to take a tonne of pictures… particularly in the city of Dubrovnik’:
Oh boy. On and on they go about the stunning city in southern Dalmatia, with a lovely shot of Mostar on display.
To be fair, they did include several landscapes of actual Dubrovnik later on, but you would think the ‘best luxury website in the world’ would pay closer attention to detail. I was curious as to the possible cause of this gaffe, so I did a quick image search of ‘Dubrovnik’ to see whether Mostar would turn up as well. What do you know – first page of results, fifth row from the top, there it is, in the bottom-right corner:
Click on the image, and it says ‘Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina’.
As far as mistakes go, this one won’t exactly stop the world from spinning, but in this particular context, any agency specialising in luxury content and aimed at a very specific market should really try to do better. Thanks for the kind words on Croatia, Alux, but next time, try putting a bit more effort into your homework.
Watch the video below:
Source: Slobodna Dalmacija
