It’s a picture that’s worth just two words: “What the…?”
Dove is tackling the hot-button issue of digital photo retouching in the latest iteration of its long-running “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.” The campaign reflects the ongoing use of digitally altered images of celebrities and models in fashion media.
A print ad developed by Ogilvy London appearing in tomorrow’s edition of Toronto’s Metro shows an upside-down image of an attractive woman accompanied by upside down text to entice readers to turn the page around.
When the photo is flipped, readers see that the woman’s appearance is actually horribly distorted, with both her lips and eyes upside down. The accompanying text reads “Does retouching distort your perception of reality.”
“When you look at this image you really do not know that it’s retouched,” said Sharon MacLeod, vice-president of marketing for Dove parent Unilever in Toronto. “When you turn it around, you think ‘How did I not see that?’
“It’s the same as what we’re seeing in magazines all the time.”
The print ad drives readers to Dove’s Facebook page, where they can view other examples of the creative and engage in a conversation about how retouching is often not apparent to impressionable girls and young women.
“There’s this continued and widespread use of extreme digital retouching,” said MacLeod. “Although it’s being more and more criticized, it has a particularly damaging effect on the self-esteem of young girls.
“Women and girls compare themselves to the images they see in media and magazines believing they’re real, when in fact they’re complete distortions of what beauty really is. They’re unknowingly comparing themselves to something that’s completely false.”
Dove provided insight into how beauty can be manipulated by the media with its landmark “Evolution” spot in 2006, but MacLeod said recent research by Dove shows there’s still work to be done in creating awareness and changing consumer perception.
A global study, “The Real Truth About Beauty,” found that only 9% of Canadian girls age 10-17 are comfortable calling themselves beautiful – a number that drops to 3% for women older than 17.
Media for the campaign was handled by Mindshare Canada.
