• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Activism and Campaigning / Company defends ‘offensive’ zombie ads

Company defends ‘offensive’ zombie ads

By John Pring on 6th February 2015 Category: Activism and Campaigning

Listen

A technology company has refused to remove an image used as part of a poster and internet advertising campaign which includes “zombies” with features that resemble people with facial disfigurements.

Disabled campaigners have branded the adverts by Powwownow – which sells conference call facilities to businesses – “offensive”, “insensitive” and “disempowering”.

The images are titled “Avoid the Horror”, and feature a group of Zombies with scars, bleeding mouths and exposed teeth, distorted by plastic masks.

James Partridge, chief executive of the user-led charity Changing Faces, contacted Powwownow to ask them to remove the adverts.

One of the zombie characters, he said, even looked similar to how his own face had looked after the car fire that left him with 40 per cent burns.

In a blog posted this week, Partridge said the moment he saw the poster was particularly “disquieting” because it was at King’s Cross station, the scene of a huge fire in 1987 that left 31 people dead, and he knew several of those who had survived but were scarred in the disaster.

He added: “The ad’s call to action to ‘Avoid the Horror’ is just as disturbing, reinforcing as it does the harmful association that people who wear masks as part of their treatment and who have burn scarring, are to be feared and avoided.”

He said Changing Faces had campaigned for many years “against the offensive use of facial scarring, asymmetrical or missing features and facial masks to deliberately incite horror, fear and revulsion in popular culture”, and had drawn attention to society’s tendency to describe scarring as “horrific” and disfigurement as “terrifying”.

Despite Powwownow originally agreeing to remove the zombie image from online versions of the advertising campaign, the company later reinstated it, and refused to remove any of the posters.

Partridge said in his blog: “Changing Faces is determined to challenge any example of prejudicial portrayal, because we are not living in the Middle Ages nor in a fantasy land nor in a horror movie.

“We live in the UK and it is time that people with disfigurements were given the respect and dignity they deserve.”

A Powwownow spokesman said the images used in the campaign – zombies, as well as clowns and demons – were “commonplace in the world of computer games, TV, entertainment and film”, while the campaign headline “‘Avoid the Horror’… reinforces the context of complete fantasy”.

He said the company had originally pulled the advert “as a mark of respect to the charity’s perspective”, before reviewing its advertising strategy.

He said: “After this robust review, we re-instated the advert as a reflection of our belief in the creative concept, its clear reference to the fantasy horror genre and the fact that we are in no way targeting or discriminating against people with facial disfigurement, or indeed any people.

“The adverts focus purely on the horror of the commuting experience and in no way target any individuals.”

He said there was “absolutely no intention to offend anyone at all”, and the campaign was “built around expressing sympathy for all people at the mercy of public transport and providing practical solutions to make their lives easier”.

5 February 2015

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on RedditShare on LinkedIn

Tags: Changing Faces disfigurement James Partridge Powwownow

A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Related

News round-up: Prescription forms, Brexit, disability arts, hate crime… and ferries
23rd January 2020
Experts call for focus on Access to Work, adjustments, attitudes… and funding
18th August 2016
This bill opens the door to scandal, abuse and injustice, disabled activists say after assisted dying bill vote
26th June 2025

Primary Sidebar

On the left of the image are multiple heads of different colours - white, aqua, red, light brown, and dark green - all grouped together, then the words ‘Campaign for Disability Justice. Sign up to support. #OpportunitySecurityRespect’
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Access

Latest Stories

Disabled MP who quit government over benefit cuts tells DNS: ‘The consequences will be devastating’

Disabled peers plan to ‘amend, amend, amend, amend, amend’ after assisted dying bill reaches Lords

Minister finally admits that working-age benefits spending is stable, despite months of ‘spiralling’ claims

This bill opens the door to scandal, abuse and injustice, disabled activists say after assisted dying bill vote

Timms says cuts must go ahead, despite being reminded of risk that disabled claimants could die

Absence of disabled people’s voices from assisted dying bill has been ‘astonishing’, says disabled MP

Timms misleads MPs on DWP transparency and cover-ups, as he gives evidence on PIP review

Ministers are considering further extension to disability hate crime laws, after pledge on ‘aggravated’ offences

Making all self-driving pilot schemes accessible would be ‘counter-productive’ and slow us down, says minister

Involve disabled people ‘meaningfully’ from the start when developing digital assistive tech, says report

Advice and Information

Readspeaker
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Threads
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web