And now...the rest of the story?

After yesterdays controversial Dove "Real Beauty" ad scandal, it appears that things have been cleared a bit, or at least that is the spin they are giving. Today, AdAdge has an article stating that the statements from the retoucher were taken out of context and that the "beauties" were not retouched.

A quote from the AdAge Article:

"As directed by Ms. Leibovitz and Ogilvy & Mather, [the Pro-Age] photographs were retouched for dust and color correction," he said. "I did not mean to suggest that the women's shape, size, facial features or age were retouched. Consistent with the intent of Dove, Ogilvy & Mather, Annie Leibovitz, and my own guiding philosophy, the integrity of the photographs and the natural and unique beauty of the women were maintained."

In her statement, provided by Unilever, Ms. Leibovitz said, "Let's be perfectly clear -- Pascal does all kinds of work -- but he is primarily a printer -- and only does retouching when asked to. The idea for Dove was very clear at the beginning. There was to be NO retouching, and there was not."

Kickstart your day! or...the post of a thousand links

As many of you know, I like to reading (OK, listen to) motivational books, and have a number of them listed in my "Books worth reading" or my "Reading for enjoyment" lists. Something about them just keep you going from day to day, looking for the potential in each day while looking optimistically toward tomorrow. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I came a cross a site that offers a daily video dose of just that, and for free. And better yet, if you sign up, each week day, a little 2-3 minute gem is delivered right to your inbox.

The creator of these little gems is Michael Chriswell and the site is called KickstartMyDay.com.

Well, recently in one of the daily videos, Michael touched on gratitude and how he had two daughters in the NICU, and that it was hard to get down on his situation and feel sorry for himself, because all around him, there were other families dealing with worse. His message was to be thankful for your problems. See the video here: http://www.kickstartmyday.com/videos/2008/5/2/be-thankful-for-your-problems.html That was a message that really resonated in me, so much so that I decided to post a response to the video on his site reaffirming those thoughts with my story as well. My daughter, Hope,  was born prematurely and weight 15.6 ounces at birth. And while there were some really difficult days, each time we looked around that NICU and saw other babies much larger than she, losing their battles, or realizing the long road ahead. And each time, we were thankful for the problems that we had, and today, Hope is 11 and happy and healthy and just a completely wonderful kid and we her family are much stronger for having had that experience.

Michael saw my post and replied to me and we became fast friends. So this week after my Mastermind book group (reading Think and Grow Rich and moderated by Jodee Bock) in which we had a discussion on making decisions and fear of failure, I thought I would querie Michael to get his perspective. He posted his reply here:http://www.kickstartmyday.com/blog/a-great-question-from-a-ks-subscriber.html and followed up with today's Kickstart video: http://www.kickstartmyday.com/videos/2008/5/9/take-some-risks.html.

So, what kind of risks are you willing to take? And your fear of failure?

Remember, the only failures you have in life are those mistakes you fail to learn from.

Real Beauty?

Today, Advertising Age is running an article titled "Dove's 'Real Beauty' Pics Could be Big Phonies" in which they discuss claims by a retouching artist that the "Real Beauties" have been retouched. Ohhh, scandal. I have been involved in retouching more than my share of images and I, like most of the world, knows it happens. Now, what is the difference here? The images are a part of Dove's "Campaign for real beauty." One of the videos, evolve (see embedded video below), shows the extensive retouching of a "plain" looking woman into a model. Gray area, maybe....so I went in search of more information. This is an excerpt that I pulled from the Dove Site: http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/press.asp?id=4563&length=short&section=news 

GREENWICH , CT, June 23, 2005 – Women strongly agree that “the media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can’t ever achieve.”[i] More than two-thirds of women globally expressed this viewpoint in a recent worldwide study.  Sadly, the impact is that only 13% of women are very satisfied with their body weight and shape,[ii] only 2% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful, and more than half of women say their bodies disgust them.[iii]
Inspired by these findings, Dove^®, the global beauty brand, is launching a new national advertising campaign today starring real women with real bodies and real curves.  The campaign is intended to make more women feel beautiful everyday – celebrating diversity and real women by challenging today’s stereotypical view of beauty.
 

So reading this, I believe that the intent of the inital campaign was to allow women to see advertising which included body weights and shapes that they could relate to.  Was that effective? I think so, I remember first seeing the campaign and thinking that it was a bold stand for them to take. I noticed their weight and shapes and absence of cellulite, but didn't necessarily care, because it was a step in the right direction. They don't advertise "absolutely no retouching." Honestly, it was shocking enough to see these women in their underwear (who look pretty good) in a magazine, are they required to accentuate each and every bump and lump besides? As a lot of you know, even extensive tweaking of lighting prior to shooting can make an enormous difference in the appearance of a photo, does that need to be disclosed as well? In my opinion, shape and weight were the issues they were addressing, now, if there was major work done in slimming and reshaping the womens bodies, I might feel differently.
 
The only way this is going to be truly clarified is if the original images magically appear, which odds of that are highly unlikely. And, if there was indeed some skin smoothing, cleanup work done, does that discredit the entire campaign? I think not. If you look overall at the Campaign for Real Beauty, the are doing some pretty healthy things for women and for girls, and for that should be applauded.

 

Evolve video