WHILE MANY people may consider Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington beautiful, they do not appear to have been sufficiently flawless for the advertising executives at L’Oréal who airbrushed their photographs in advertising campaigns aimed at promoting two of its most prominent brands.
News that an advertisement – particularly one for a beauty product – is not an entirely accurate representation of reality may not come as a complete surprise, but the doctored shots still fell foul of the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority, which banned both ads because they could be misleading.
It acted after receiving complaints from Liberal Democratic MP Jo Swinson. She said the digitally enhanced advertisements created a false impression of beauty and put pressure on women who compared themselves unfavourably with the images.
The advertisement featuring Roberts was for Lancôme’s Teint Miracle Foundation. It claimed the product would recreate “the aura of perfect skin”. L’Oréal accepted that post-production techniques had been used on the image but maintained it was still an accurate representation of Roberts’s “naturally healthy and glowing skin”.
L’Oréal also owns the Maybelline brand. An ad for its “Eraser” featured a portion of Christy Turlington’s face covered by foundation and another part left “natural” so people could compare the before and after look.
“Conceals instantly, visibly, precisely . . . Covers dark circles and fine lines to help conceal crow’s feet – as if erased,” the ad promised. In very small print along the bottom, were the words: “Illustrated effect”.
Again L’Oréal admitted the picture had been altered to “lighten the skin, clean up make-up, reduce dark shadows and shading around the eyes, smooth the lips and darken the eyebrows” but insisted it was an accurate reflection of the product’s benefits.
The advertising authority did not buy it. When it came to the Roberts ruling, it said: “On the basis of the evidence we had received, we could not conclude that the ad image accurately illustrated what effect the product could achieve and that the image had not been exaggerated by digital post-production techniques”.
It said the Maybelline advertisement was also likely to mislead.
“This ruling demonstrates that the advertising regulator is acknowledging the dishonest and misleading nature of excessive retouching,” Ms Swinson said. “Pictures of flawless skin and super-slim bodies are all around, but they don’t reflect reality.”
It is not the first time L’Oréal has come unstuck. It had to add a disclaimer to its Telescopic mascara ads after it emerged that actor Penelope Cruz was wearing false eyelashes in the promotional photographs. Another time, the authority ruled in its favour after singer Cheryl Cole was found to be wearing hair extensions in its Elvive shampoo campaign. The authority said the ad was not misleading because people would understand that Cole had been professionally styled.
Stuart Fogarty, a Dublin advertising consultant, said advertisers sometimes tread a “thin line between aspiration and truth”. However, he said that if ads were digitally enhanced to create false impressions, they would fall foul of the Irish watchdog too. “The fundamental issue is that ads have to be legal, truthful, honest and decent. If you are trying to sell a product, you cannot just visually enhance it.”
At one time Mr Fogarty was responsible for the Lynx deodorant account in Ireland.
It famously highlighted the “Lynx effect” which had beautiful women falling at the feet of ordinary looking men because they were wearing the deodorant.
While he accepted that such an outcome was unlikely, he stressed the “aspirational element” to it.
“Wearing the deodorant may not actually make you more attractive but because you smell better, you might have a better chance.”
