Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Is What You See, What You Get?

Everyday we are bombarded with advertisements and commercials in which the models look absolutely perfect.  In a world full of digital imaging, retouching and airbrushing, it can be hard to tell what’s real and what’s fake.  I plan to blog about the effect this distorted imaging can have on young girls at a later date.  For this blog post, I’d like to focus on what, if anything, the government should do to regulate these ads.

Recently, the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) began cracking down on companies that heavily airbrush or retouch their photos.  Cosmetic company L’Oreal recently had several of their advertisements pulled in the United Kingdom for making claims about their products that they couldn’t support with factual evidence.  Member of Parliament, Jo Swinson, stated that the photos used in the ads were, “not representative of the results the products could achieve”.  You can check out the advertisements in question here: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/loreal-ads-of-julia-roberts-and-christy-turlington-banned-for-airbrushing-2516498/

In the United States, commercial speech is not protected under the Constitutional freedom of free speech.  The government can regulate advertisements that are false or misleading.  That being said, many companies retouch their photos before publication and it’s not usually consider it false advertising.

So my question to you this week is, “Do you believe these advertisements crossed the line?  Are all retouched ads misleading?  Do you think the United States should do more to crackdown on the companies that publish these advertisements?”  Answers are due no later than Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011.
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15 comments:

  1. rebecca shehornJuly 28, 2011 at 12:48 PM

    While I agree with the British Parliament, in the fact that the ad was advertising a skin cream that would produce results, but that the photograph of Julia Roberts that was suppose to be representative of the results, is clearly unobtainable. However, in light of the fact that retouching is in EVERY SINGLE AD, government involvement in the subjective decision on what retouching is acceptable, that would be a form of Government censorship. Though the idea sounds great, in practice it seems rather unobtainable itself.

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  2. EileenJuly 28, 2011 at 1:17 PM

    I agree that to a degree that advertisement has crossed the line, all in the name of selling a product and making a profit. This is not wrong and neither is the method. The method is just being overly used.

    So there should be at least a limit to these AD touch ups, for the sake of future businesses! Things like putting up a disclaimer and no longer using actors to represent the products unless they use said products, stuff like that.

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  3. Toni ClarkJuly 28, 2011 at 6:11 PM

    Being a fashion student, I'm faced with the subjects of unobtainable results advertisements provide regularly. The makeup industry is HUGE, so to say that companies should use true, untouched photographs of models wearing their makeup is crazy. It's no different than going to a fast food restaurant and ordering what you see on a picture; you're sure as hell not going to get anything near what that burger looks like. Almost every product you see an advertisement for is faulty in some way, shape, or form because that's how media advertising works, and everyone knows that what you see is NOT what you get. It just seems like common sense to me.

    If this law were enforced to a higher degree, then it won't just be makeup companies that are under scrutiny. Maybe they should lighten up on the heavy editing, but to have every advertisement that shows a product doing entirely more than what's logical pulled? Seems a little drastic.

    As for a more sensible solution, I like what Eileen said. Disclaimers would be a perfect solution. That way, the customer is aware that they won't be professionally airbrushed with a $8 bottle of foundation.

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  4. AnonymousJuly 31, 2011 at 2:22 PM

    Maybe I've become a bit jaded over the years, but I personally think that when people view advertisements, they should do so with at least some skepticism. I don't assume that something in an advertisement is complete fact unless I have personal evidence to say it is so, and I always think of people in advertisements are paid actors unless it is specifically stated otherwise. To put disclaimers on every advertisement that shows a few embellishments of truth, in my opinion, insults the intelligence of the average individual. Of course, many people lack the common sense to take things with a grain of salt, but that doesn't mean media should assume the public can't tell the difference between complete fact and exaggeration.

    --Jess Renae Curtis

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  5. Matthew_MihalikAugust 1, 2011 at 6:19 AM

    I think most people in this country know by now that most advertisements are a load of crap... though I could just be grossly overestimating some people's intelligence.
    Possibly the only major portion of an audience that doesn't know is young people, and I believe trying to say the government should regulate it is bound to make another huge debate just like videogame/tv censorship.
    It's time for the parents to step up and explain that it's a load of bull and the real world isn't like what they see. If we can get a whole generation to look at an advertisement and say "OH COME ON!", then maybe we can get the advertisers to stop being such idiots.
    .....next stop with this idea? Hollywood! Lets teach the kids that mindless physics defying explosions and movies with no story and shallow characters is a load of crap! Lets bring back real movies and tv by breeding a generation to hate the junk they are making now!!!!

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  6. Michael GreenAugust 2, 2011 at 6:52 AM

    Michael Green...I think since we as the people kno that the ads have airbrushing and make up in them, we should take that into consideration instead of getting upset about it because the simple fact of it is is that....its obvious to us and we know it. However I would love to see the govt. crack down on these advertisement companies and put a restriction to some of the things they can do to maybe deceive a person. Ima keep it all the way 100% real type of guy, and is rather somebody or something be be presented to me in that manner.

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  7. eddie.brooks3August 2, 2011 at 8:18 AM

    looking at how our world is shaped, I think that it boils down to micromanagement. In the 50's, you had the introduction to Barbie... and then it was considered misleading to young children. You had models like Marylin Monroe and Jayne Mansfield that were the unrealistic epidemy of beauty. Today you have airbrush and super thin models that are 5' 10' and weigh no more than 90 lbs. We are a free world and as Americans we escaped the tyrany of English rule to enjoy those freedoms... Now we want to consider sensoring the very freedoms that were provided by our for fathers. England ruled the world for about 300 years until a group of people wanted to get away and escape so they could enjoy freedoms that they couldn't find elsewhere in the world... Got news for you people, there are no more undiscovered areas in the world that we can go to escape and have freedom of relegion, freedom of speech and basic freedoms that we as Americans enjoy today. So, we can either stop trying to micro manage everything and just live our lives and enjoy it for what it is worth or try to tell other people what they can and cannot watch, eat , or breath. If you don't like what is on tv or what you are hearing through the radio, turn it OFF!!! yep, it's just that easy. IT is yet another freedom we have... the freedom to not believe everything we see and hear and be real parents and teach our kids the difference between what is right and wrong and what to believe... yeh, I think I remember reading that somewhere!

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  8. EricaAugust 2, 2011 at 12:05 PM

    I agree that they take things a little too far with airbrushing people to make them look perfect. I'm probably used to it by now but we all should realize that people don't look that perfect, even with a product. Maybe they should put a disclaimer in the ad (even if it's really small) so people can't complain about the product not working that perfectly.

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  9. LSierraAugust 2, 2011 at 8:59 PM

    I do believe ads crossed the line because they show unreal qualities or result of some products. In addition, it is not just the products even the unrealistic beauty of women. Companies just want to sell their products so they are going to retouch all the pictures as much as they can so they can create more consumptions. In these days, it is pretty hard to believe that everybody on those ads are perfect.

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  10. AnonymousAugust 2, 2011 at 10:13 PM

    Advertising itself is a very false providing business, i think that the business has to make what they are standing for ten times more exaggerated then it should be. As for the government getting involved well...... they have no room to make comments on only because the government is a very false advertiser itself. For this subject I feel as though, advertising is false, and government should leave it alone and leave it up to the consumers risk.

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  11. emily roderickAugust 2, 2011 at 11:43 PM

    Media has been taking things a little far for quite a while now. All the air brushing and off the wall things they can do in ads is just crazy. I do believe that many of us are just used to it by now and know that those people or things in ads arent really what they appear to be. As for the younger generation they are believing that what they see is what they will get or what they could look like. Which is wrong and maybe having the government control some of these issues would help to an extent. But I really don't think that much would change. Its more likely to get worse with the way technology is improving. So like someone said if you dont like it and dont approve then dont look at it and dont let your kids look at it.

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  12. UnknownAugust 4, 2011 at 8:19 AM

    Everything in the interest of capitalism. If you can make your product better than the competitors, you sell more. It just so happens, a lot of products are based on, or are, people. So basically yes, I think media is taking it way to far, but in our society, technology is much faster than the political, and legislative world, so unfortunately, it will stay this way for a while, and even when it does change, it probably won't be better, just different.
    - Nick Cassady

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  13. Pauline P.August 4, 2011 at 9:50 AM

    I'm an FRM major and I definitely face these kinds of advertisements all the time. I know I will encounter it more because I want to work for a fashion magazine. It's the way it is, everyone wants to see someone who is flawless. It's the idea of what we want to see and what we want to be able to see in ourselves. It'll be very difficult to crack down on it. Eventually as we get older we realize everything is never as it seems in advertisements.

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  14. jlaumeyerAugust 11, 2011 at 3:37 PM

    So I feel that the people that need to look to magazines or ads for a gauge of how they should look are living in an imaginary world and probably have self-esteem issues. But who doesn't. Isn't it more important to be happy with what you have and not worried about what you don't because your not gonna get it anyway? If you open your eyes and look around you there are very few people that look like the people in pop culture.

    I believe in freedom of speech very strongly but there is a line that is between speech that is factually and speech that isn't. I don't think there should be censorship on ads along as they are factually accurate. You don't have to look at the magazines after all.

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  15. derekb441August 23, 2011 at 7:55 PM

    I don't believe that the did. Its hard to say but that's what a good designer is paid for, to make people buy there products. So if people just go and buy things without doing any sort of research, and are buying just from an add, thin its there fault. Now it the ad states that this car will wash our close and walk your dog, and it doesn't then that's something to fight about. As long as they are not breaking the law, stuff like that, i don't think they need to crack down on it any harder than they are.

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