Britain Bans Digitally Altered Ads

[William Parcher]

Twiggy's Olay ad banned over airbrushing

In its ruling, the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) said that it considered that the post-production retouching of the original ad, specifically in the eye area, could give consumers a "misleading impression of the effect the product could achieve".

A combination of the retouching and the language of the ad was likely to mislead consumers, it ruled.

 

[Twiler]

Yay!

One up for reality!

 

[commandlinegamer]

Airbrushing is just one technique. I'm sure they also tweak the brightness/contrast ratio to achieve similar effects.

 

[slingblade]

Airbrushing is just one technique. I'm sure they also tweak the brightness/contrast ratio to achieve similar effects.

I imagine they might. And they shouldn't. If one is trying to show the results of using a product, one should show the actual results, without altering the image to give the desired results. Either she's used the product, and it's made a difference, or...not. Altering the image is misleading.

 

[Arus808]

I imagine they might. And they shouldn't. If one is trying to show the results of using a product, one should show the actual results, without altering the image to give the desired results. Either she's used the product, and it's made a difference, or...not. Altering the image is misleading.

tell that to every ad maker around. Especially those "im selling you an exercise equipment, and here you get these kinds of abs in 3 weeks!" ads.

 

[slingblade]

tell that to every ad maker around. Especially those "im selling you an exercise equipment, and here you get these kinds of abs in 3 weeks!" ads.

Well, gee, I would if I thought they'd care, that it would make a difference.

That I know they don't care, and it wouldn't make a difference, doesn't alter my opinion. Should it?

ETA: and before anyone asks, I don't use "beauty" products. I already know they don't do what they're purported to do. I'm not very pretty , and a cream or lotion isn't going to change that.

 

[Oliver]

Woohooo, finally! [Hoping that Germany will do the same thing]
Also, test my new Anti-Age panacea yourself ... here.

 

[Darat]

I imagine they might. And they shouldn't. If one is trying to show the results of using a product, one should show the actual results, without altering the image to give the desired results. Either she's used the product, and it's made a difference, or...not. Altering the image is misleading.

Unfortunately they can also get away with a bit of small print saying something like "eye lashes enhanced in post production" but generally it is good that whilst they can try to make their products (or any results of their products) look as good as possible they can't alter the product.

 

[Oliver]

Unfortunately they can also get away with a bit of small print saying something like "eye lashes enhanced in post production" but generally it is good that whilst they can try to make their products (or any results of their products) look as good as possible they can't alter the product.

Well, who would buy a product that basically says "we altered the ****ing image so we can fool you consuming idiots into buying our crap"?

 

[Darat]

Well, who would buy a product that basically says "we altered the ****ing image so we can fool you consuming idiots into buying our crap"?

Unfortunately women. Quite seriously after complaints about advertisements for mascara in which they were filming women wearing eye-lash extensions they have now taken to running the adverts with a bit of small print which will say something like "eyelashes enhanced with extensions/in post production". Similar lines are often added to advertisements about hair colourants and products e.g. "Ms Coles hair is styled with natural extensions"

 

[Oliver]

Unfortunately women. Quite seriously after complaints about advertisements for mascara in which they were filming women wearing eye-lash extensions they have now taken to running the adverts with a bit of small print which will say something like "eyelashes enhanced with extensions/in post production". Similar lines are often added to advertisements about hair colourants and products e.g. "Ms Coles hair is styled with natural extensions"

Quite frankly, I never saw such a disclaimer. But imagine they would be forced to put up such a disclaimer in big letters so even consumers using very small TV's are actually able to read the disclaimers we see all the time in the smallest letters imaginable.

 

[GlennB]

Quite frankly, I never saw such a disclaimer. But imagine they would be forced to put up such a disclaimer in big letters so even consumers using very small TV's are actually able to read the disclaimers we see all the time in the smallest letters imaginable.

Romanian TV adverts for medical products (pain killers, cough medicine etc etc) are required to show the health advice on the screen and read it out. The writing often runs to several lines and is too small to read, and the spoken version is sped up to 200mph so it sounds like an audio cassette on fast-forward. But, it's legal I suppose.

It would be a rare suitable case for EU standardisation.

 

[Oliver]

Romanian TV adverts for medical products (pain killers, cough medicine etc etc) are required to show the health advice on the screen and read it out. The writing often runs to several lines and is too small to read, and the spoken version is sped up to 200mph so it sounds like an audio cassette on fast-forward. But, it's legal I suppose.

It would be a rare suitable case for EU standardisation.

It certainly would be suitable given the fact that while medical disclaimers in Germany have to be read by a speaker and readable no matter what TV you use, other disclaimers about non-medical products are so small that you even have a hard time to decipher them on big TV-screens...

 

[Beerina]

Yay!

One up for reality!

I remember learning, in psychology class of all things, about food laws that required the food in the picture (if it was the thing being sold) had to be the actual product as made or manufactured, and not altered.

They couldn't add extra meat to a sandwich. They couldn't put marbles in a bowl, then pour the soup over it, to force all the goodies to stick out or be near the surface. Etc.

I love looking at Subway ads and see how they puff up the meat by gently flopping it over to make ribbon-like loops. Meanwhile the actual sandwich has the meat flat and slapped on, having been pre-measured, stacked, and separated with paper pieces. Same with a McDonald's hamburger, where they make sure the tomatoes, lettuce, and a pickle or two are sticking right out the edge where the photo is being taken.

Those are stretching it, but aren't really a fraud.


I'm glad places are catching up to beauty. Here's a famous woman who uses this moisturizer on her eyes. But she's also:

• Had several face lifts
• Had Botox
• Used many other products daily
• Probably didn't even use this product
• Had professionals do her makeup and use industrial-strength moisturizer
• Had the picture run through a computerized flesh-smoothing filter
• Had a grease lens on the camera
• Had the picture shooped after all that anyway

So...yeah.

 

[kedo1981]

I predict that very few celebs will want to be in British magazines .

 

[Darat]

I predict that very few celebs will want to be in British magazines .

This is just to do with adverts - and it is not anything new so I doubt anything will change because of one ruling that is similar to dozens of others in the past.

 

[roger]

What strikes me about this (in terms of false advertising) is not the photo, but the idea that slathering this goop on you will make you look younger.

A quick google shows that while Olay is actually one of the few products than can alter wrinkles, the alteration is actually something like a tenth of a millimeter in depth and all but indetectable to the naked eye.

So, I can't get too worked up about the photoshopping.

 

[geni]

tell that to every ad maker around. Especially those "im selling you an exercise equipment, and here you get these kinds of abs in 3 weeks!" ads.

Actualy they don't really need to cheat as much as you think. The trick there is you find someone already in pretty good shape and get them to pose in a way that doesn't really show this. You then get them to go through all the little tricks that Bodybuilders use to appear their best on the day of the competition and then get them to pose in a way that best shows off their muscle.

 

[William Parcher]

I couldn't think of any other place to put this. First it was jeans with holes. Now it's stockings with runs. Put away the airbrush.