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May 09, 2008
Brouhaha Lite
In response to the semi-interesting piece The New Yorker just published about some guy who possibly retouched the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty ads, and the semi-interesting semi-nonexistent semi-backlash against Dove and Ogilvy and Annie Liebovitz and WHATEVER - everything's fake people, let's not fool ourselves - my former employers just released this:
Statement from Dove about The New Yorker Article
Dove's mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by widening the definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of themselves. Dove strives to portray women by accurately depicting their shape, size, skin color and age.The "real women" ad referenced in recent media coverage was created and produced entirely by Ogilvy, the Dove brand's advertising agency, from start to finish and the women's bodies were not digitally altered.
Pascal Dangin worked with photographer Annie Leibovitz (Ogilvy has never employed Mr. Dangin on the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty), who did the photography for the launch of the Dove ProAge campaign, a new campaign within the Campaign for Real Beauty. There was an understanding between Dove and Ms. Leibovitz that the photos would not be retouched - the only actions taken were the removal of dust from the film and minor color correction.
"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," confirmed Annie Leibovitz, commenting on the ProAge campaign.
Mr. Dangin responded, "The recent article published by The New Yorker incorrectly implies that I retouched the images in connection with the Dove "real women" ad. I only worked on the Dove ProAge campaign taken by Annie Leibovitz and was directed only to remove dust and do color correction - both the integrity of the photographs and the women's natural beauty were maintained."
So OK. Sounds great. These women don't have a zit or scar or bruise or cellulite dimple amongst them. If I wasn't allergic to every single product Dove makes (true), I'd be all up in that (false). Swears (also false).
But the real question remains (and what the press seems to have distressingly overlooked): is it ever advisable to use an apostrophe s in connection to a brand name? I mean, sure, if you're not representing them - who cares - but I seem to remember that that's a big no-no. Especially in first reference. That sentence could have easily been rewritten to avoid that (just look at the next one, no apostrophes there), and just seems a bit sloppy to me. I can't picture any of my old department heads letting that one slide, especially on a release of this magnitude that was obveez gonna get picked up by all and sundry.
I am so disappointed. I think I am going to go put on my white underthings and prance around the neighborhood yelling, "La la la, real women have strange allergies to soaps and lotions and appreciate proper PR punctuation!" until I feel better. C-U-LATE.
Posted by Bree at May 9, 2008 12:37 PM
Comments
you and me got that Dove product allergy. You and me BOTH sister friend.
Posted by: molly p at May 9, 2008 05:18 PM
It must be something about growing up in the northwest corners of our northeast states. Either that or Dove is filled with virgin goat plasma - a theory I have often floated, but not yet proved.
Posted by: Bree at May 10, 2008 11:04 AM