She's a beauty! Or...is she?

Today, during my Digital Color Foundations class (Yay! GD), my teacher previewed our lecture with this Dove tv ad from a couple years back. We're working on portrait editing (scar, wrinkle-"imperfection" removal) for the next couple of classes, and he wanted to show students to full capabilities of Adobe Photoshop. For those of us who don't remember, Dove repositioned themselves in 2006 to highlight the power of natural beauty, and the superficiality of edited beauty. They wanted to show consumers that the perception of what one should like, through tv, magazines, and other forms of media, is often misleading. This move was brilliant. Dove was essentially linking their brand to the acceptance of all natural body types, regardless of shape or size. Highlighting the harmful effects of common industry tools such as photoshop positioned the brand on the consumer's side rather than that of the fashion industry, or societal standards for beauty. Dove created a campaign about imperfections, and sizes above 0 being beautiful, radiant, natural. Henceforth, Ogilvy & Mather was able to construct a new image of a perfect body type...yours. With all things iconic, parodies soon follow. Below is the parody of a...less attractive reality, reinforcing the value of editing photographs. Whichever you enjoyed more, as of next week I'll have some tricks to share for you proud adobe owners.