Were they retouched …. weren’t they retouched?
Long post, so’ll put my conclusion here:
I guess we’ll never know the real truth – I certainly would like to believe that they were not touched up and the campaign still has authenticity.
What is easy to see from this though, is the level of distrust there is. We all so quickly accepted (and some people continue believe) that we were lied to, and that when that is so contrary to the brands position the news, fueled by indignation spreads like wildfire … maybe this is the real lesson.
Post:
Ogilvy and the Dove have come out on the offensive to defend their campaign – AdAge prints a piece 2 days after the original with their counter claim “Marketer and Celeb Photographer Deny Reports of Retouched Images for Campaign” reads the headline.
And John Bell, who heads up Ogilvy PR’s latest interactive discipline designed to manage brands – The 360° Digital Influence team – drops a comment on my blog
“Simply put – you have it all wrong.
The photos were not retouched. The brand came out with a clear statement about it ableit a little late for the speed of our digital world.
http://adage.com/article?article_id=126945
Be careful not to be too quick to jump on the bandwagon ultimately fueled by trade press' need to sell papers. While I did not work on the Dove campaign, I strongly believe their heart and their practice was firmly where it needed to be – challenging the media's portrayal of women's beauty. As a father of a "beautiful" 10 year old daughter, I am grateful for what a traditional advertiser did to challenge status quo".
Having had the opportunity to chat with John in the past I am sure that he is genuine – and this is not simple PR Spin.
But the debate rages on … and in fact grows more complex.
James Danziger who runs a New York Gallery – Daniger Project – writes on his blog that there is some confusion over who shot the images in question. He also claims that The New Yorker is standing by its article
These, according to him are the images shot by Leibovitz
And these images – more widely used – were shot by a British photographer Ranklin.
Dove’s full press releases (below)
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."
