Dove's real beauty ads may have been retouched
LONDON - Dove's 'Campaign for real beauty' ads, featuring images of 'real women' of all sizes, could be fakes, as an airbrush artist reveals that he significantly retouched the pictures.
Pascal Dangin was quoted in an article in the May 12 issue of the New Yorker, posted online, saying that he retouched the photo of women in their underwear used in one of the campaign's earliest executions.
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In the New Yorker article, Lauren Collins wrote: "It turned out that it was a Dangin job. 'Do you know how much retouching was on that?' he asked. 'But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone's skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive'."
Dangin, founder and head of Box Studios in New York, retouches fashion photographs and regularly works for the likes of Vogue, Dior and Balenciaga.
If the allegations are proved to be true it could be very damaging to Dove's four-year campaign and to its ad agency Ogilvy & Mather.
It would be particularly hypocritical following Dove's popular viral video 'Dove Evolution', which shows an attractive but bare-faced woman transformed with make-up, styling and retouching into a stunning model. It ends with the line "no wonder our perception of beauty is distorted".
The viral won both a Cyber and Film Grand Prix for Unilever at the International Advertising Festival last year and has been viewed more than 15m times online.
Unilever and Ogilvy & Mather were both unavailable for comment at the time of publishing. However, an Ogilvy spokeswoman told US trade journal Advertising Age that the agency disagreed with Dangin's claim.
She said: "We are unsure right now what he did. He works with Annie Leibovitz, the photographer. And we don't have any record of him actually working on any of the Dove campaign.
"There was no retouching of the women. If there was a hair that was up in the air, that might have been the kind of retouching that was done. But until I know what he actually worked on, I can't comment on it."
Dove: allegations of touch ups
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Comments
David Llewelyn-Jones - 08/05/2008
oh dear, that would be a shame if it were true.
Andrew Blakeley - 08/05/2008
I really hope this isn't true, because I'd like to think there simply aren't people that foolish in the world. These things ALWAYS come out in the end and it will always impact the brand negatively. If you're going to tout how real and untouched your campaign is then that's exactly what it has to be, or people are going to end up with egg on their faces.
CF - 08/05/2008
Every single photograph that goes into these things is retouched in some way - but that doesn't always mean that the appearance of the women has been significantly altered. Maybe one of them had spinach in her teeth. You'd take that out. Maybe there was a blob of mascara that had run onto someone's cheek. You'd take that out too. These women are there to look normal, not stupid. Just because the photos spent some some time being worked on doesn't have to mean the worst.
Natalie Clarke - 08/05/2008
Dove shouldn't be campaigning for real beauty if the photos are retouched. How about a photo retouching service for real women instead?
Richard Hayter - 08/05/2008
Of course it's bloody true. Just look at how smooth the tone is in their thighs!
Lucy Heather - 09/05/2008
The least surprising piece of news I've seen. The beauty industry knows it sells "hope in a jar", how hopeful would I be of a brand that associates itself with people as ugly as I feel when I look in the mirror? More airburshing please! Besides which I think the campaign is pretty shallow for such a worthy strap line. Just because it uses a couple of podgy lasses and a good looking wrinkly grannie doesn't mean it represents "real beauty". Benetton ads are a much better reflection of challenging this.
gemma Gales - 16/05/2008
But still an improvement on the Simple campaign. Hands up if you think those women are just a little too smug...
P HAYWOOD - 26/06/2008
They're more 'real' in the adland context than models in their low teens significantly airbrushed. If real in this context means natural and unadorned, you could argue that 'real' women should be portrayed with no make-up, clothes or jewlelry, sign a statement that they have shunned all dental and cosmetic work, not to mention visits to the hairdresser and nail bar!. What about men? Shaving - how natural is that?