Many of us in our industry have been talking about an extremely successful commercial for a well known brand of soap. The buzz around this campaign has even hit the talk show circuit and has been “spun” off to support a charity. The halo around this campaign certainly seems to be brighter than many of recent memory.

Recently, a link to this ad was sent to us with the subject, "No wonder we have a distorted view of beauty.” Included in the text were comments like: “Look at all the Photoshop work they do to manipulate our (women's) images.”

The commercial starts with a very plain looking young lady who is transformed into a stunning goddess and placed onto a billboard for all to see, and to ultimately sell soap.

As a creative agency that has often employed photo retouching as part of the creative process we know that for the most part, the transformation of the ordinary girl in this ad started with hair, make-up and lighting. Very little of the photo is actually manipulated with Photoshop. Since the image in this ad is on a billboard, elongating the neck assists the viewer because of forced perspective—meaning when you look up at an image, it appears shorter than it really is so the image itself needs to be lengthened to look more realistic to the viewer.

Some would go as far as to suggest that it is the advertisers and their agencies that are guilty of the diminished self esteem of women and young girls.

In a recent Marketing magazine article, the director, Yael Staav, who shot the "Evolution" commercial for Dove soap, stated that she “feels diminished when she looks at a magazine, even though she is in the advertising industry and knows it's fake.”

Further in the article, a professor at York University says, “the Evolution commercial is good, because when women look at pictures in a magazine they can appreciate the fantasy, they can appreciate the escapism, but they can also realize they aren't real women."

In our opinion the reality is that all the photographed women in the magazines are real.

Many of them are simply beautiful, and when you style their hair, apply professional make-up and add favourable lighting, they are stunning! The Photoshop work that is applied afterwards is only marginal compared to what is accomplished in the photographer’s studio with a professional cast and crew.

Dove’s strategy is brilliant because they are telling women that they should all feel better personally and not compare themselves to those professional models. The danger is that Dove is using the same advertising tools of enhancement and manipulation — TO SELL THEIR PRODUCT ONLY WITH A DIFFERENT SPIN. Through discussing this campaign with women we found the reality is that females don't just compare themselves to models in magazines, they compare themselves with each other. Female colleagues often tell us that they don't put on makeup to impress men, but to impress other women.

You can read Dove’s self esteem literature or visit an online chat area where women share some of their deep and personal feelings. As we feel the halo around this campaign glowing brighter and brighter we can’t help but wonder if the halo effect may result in people being blinded to the truth. Nowhere in the myriad “Dove speak” is the brand dealing with the real hard issues of self image and the fact that women are competing with each other.

We all know the goal of brand advertisers is to sell their products. In this instance we think Dove’s strategy is truly brilliant. At the risk of appearing overtly opinionated we caution advertisers who will attempt to “wear the mantle of truth and purity” that they should strive to tell the whole truth. After all a half truth can still be deceptive.

Every time this company (Unilever) puts cosmetics on the women in their ads, photographs them using the best lighting conditions, with the best photographers, they are still saying something. Number one, Unilever says: “buy our Dove soap products” and number two “women still need make-up to be accepted and if you use a lot cosmetics you can look amazing.”

You will not find Unilever making any statement about cosmetics because if they did, they would be fighting something greater than low self esteem, they would be fighting against a multibillion dollar cosmetics industry.

If Unilever wants to be of real benefit to a woman's self image they should tell the whole truth by showing a woman with no make up and natural lighting. And if they just want to sell soap, why take shots at the rest of the industry, when you are using the same techniques?

Ultimately Yael Staav said it best when she was quoted in Marketing magazine, "the success of this campaign is because it is telling woman what they want to hear. That being said, the next time someone asks you if they look fat in a dress...tell them what they want to hear.”