Dove's real women

There’s much talk of models and how perfect the women in a commercial or in an advertisement look. This is a big influence to the youth. A lot of people think that women need to be perfect, just as in the advertisement, or just like women in commercials.

                                          

In 2006 The Dove self-esteem fund broadcasted a commercial about the perception of beauty being distorted and stereotypes. In the commercial you see a model before a photo shoot. At first she doesn’t wear any make-up and hasn’t done anything to her hair yet. After the make-up artist put a ton of make-up on her face and after the hairdresser did her hair, they took the picture and after that they Photoshoped it. You can see the before and after, and the huge difference between those two.

Dove True Beauty commercial

I think it’s a great well thought commercial, because it shows people that what you see in an advertisement, on billboards, in magazines etcetera is fake.

After some reading on the Internet I have my doubts about the campaign. You would expect that this campaign is good for Dove's image, but After the advertisement of Dove was exposed, a famous airbrusher: Pascal Dangin said that he Photoshopped Dove's "real women"! 

The commercial is supose to lead to a positive image of Dove. Dove says that the company and the self-esteem fund both believe that real beauty is in different shapes, sizes and ages. That's why Dove launched the campaign: "Real beauty".  

Nolita shocks with no anorexia campaign

The Italian fashion brand Nolita started a campaign 'No Anorexia' in September 2007 with a shocking campaign photo that appeared in every Italian newspaper. The picture showed a naked Isabelle Caro who suffers from anorexia with the text 'No Anorexia'. This 27-year-old French model has been suffering from Anorexia for 15 years.


The photo was taken by Oliviero Toscani, which previously collaborated on a shocking campaign for the fashion brand Benneton.

Nolita hopes that the pictures show how serious Anorexia Nervosa is. The pictures were published in the middle of Milan Fahion Week in protest against the skinny models that appeared on the catwalk that week. Nolita wanted to show that size 0 doesn't look as pretty as it sounds.

Soon there was a lot of criticism on the campaign photo of Nolita. It would encourage young girls to anorexia. For anorexics, the body of Isabelle Caro is a dream picture. They claimed that this picture does not support or offers help to anorexics.

In my opinion it's a great campaign and advertisement, because it actually immediately draws the attention of everyone who sees it, because it contains a shocking picture of a naked woman.

Another great part of it, is that the campaign received a lot of free publicity. Many people were talking about the advertisement and it was shown at many television programs, for example at 'The price of beauty' on Dutch television. But the important thing is that the fashion world has decided that models that are too thin will not longer be hired.

Fur-Free and Fabulous

PETA animal rights organization in the United States thinks that people can create a fabulous look without fur. Therefore, they set up a campaign in which they use pictures of famous women like Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Tyra Banks and Carrie Underwood as ambassadors for an anti-fur campaign called Fur-Free and Fabulous.

The campaign attracted a lot attention and many people were very positive about the ads. The only problem is that none of the famous women has given permission to use their pictures in the anti-fur advertisements. The White House demanded that all the posters that already hang over New York would be removed. None of the women was related to Peta, but Peta cannot use pictures of them in their ads without permission.

It is not the first time that PETA makes a bad move. Last year they accused Carla Bruni, wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy of wearing fur.

Bruni reacted furiously: "I never wore fur, will never buy and do not own fur! Any designer who dresses me can confirm that I never accept fur clothing, not even if it contains a small bit of fur. " Bruni does wear fake fur, and apparently of such good quality that Peta assumed it was real.

These two slippages which animal organization has made, made many people talk negative about the animal right organization. Bad word of mouth is bad for their image and could damage Peta.

My advice for Peta is to improve their marketing and communication actions in the future and not make mistakes like these anymore.

Calvin Klein's advertisement banned

A advertising campaign for fashion brand Calvin Klein is not being broadcasted in a number of major Australian cities anymore because the ads provoke a feeling of violence and rape. The advertisements shows how an almost naked woman is held by one man while another pulls her hair.

                        
The picture caused a lot of bad comments, there were more than 50 complaints filed against the campaign. Also people who support victims of sexual offenses, and women's groups were very negative about the Calvin Klein-posters.
A spokesman of one of the women’s group said "If we continue to submit to this barrage of aggressive and sexually violent images in advertising, movies and games, the violence against women and girls continues to grow in the future generations of young men." And I totally agree with her.


Calvin Klein said the ads are not meant to provoke any feelings of violence or rape and that they find it unfortunate that the ads left a bad massage behind in people´s minds.
In my opinion Calvin Klein has not thought about the impression it leaves on people and what is ethically right or wrong. Ethics does mean what is morally right and what is not. And the responses of the residents of Australian cities shows that they find it ethically not correct.
Probably it was the intention to create a lot of attention for the brand with these shocking advertisements. But it did not work out well for Calvin Klein because the ads were too shocking and putted the brand in a bad spotlight.

Dolce and Gabanna's referees

We all have many different facets to our personality; this is the world of D&G," says Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana about their new campagne witch shows six nude topmodels. The new campagne belongs to the launch of the new Anthology parfumes of dolce and gabanna. Every perfume has its own ambassador. For example number 11. La Force, has Tony Ward as its ambassador. Other ambassadors are Naomi Cambell Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Eva Herzigova met Fernando Fernandes, Noah Mills and Tyson Ballou.

I find it very smart that Dolce and Gabanna uses ambassadors to promote their new perfumes, because many people can be influenced by a referee and in this case the models are the referees.

The models provide informal information about the product in a commercial and ads. For a product like perfume, it is important to attract the attention by reference because there are many simular products on the market. Because there are many competitors Dolce and Gabbana puts a lot of money in creating an image of the type of people who use their brand. What is being said about the brand is less important than the person who represents the product.


                             

Dolce and Gabanna has reached their goal because on multiple blogs and websites people discussed the brand. From the blogs clearly show that bought the perfume because they look up to one or more of the ambassadors or they find one or multiple models very sexy.

In my opinion this is a very good campaign for Dolce and Gabbana. What do you think? Feel free to leave comments.

Introduction and first blog

My name is Hellan Kocer, I`m 19 years old and I live in The Hague in The Netherlands.
The subject of my web logs are going to be about fashion advertisement. I am going to look at the advertisements not just as a consumer, but also as a marketeer.


I`m going to write two web logs a week, about all kind of fashion advertisements. I hope that you will enjoy my blogs and feel free to leave comments behind about my blogs or the advertisements.

Witchery shows young girls in adult clothing
Young girls are getting mature faster. But the way that fashionlabel Witchery promotes her new line, shocked a lot of people including their own costomers. In their latest advertisements, the fashionlabel shows girls of a age of five, who are wearing adult clothing. Not only are they wearing adult clothing, but they also pose as if they are adult models.

Of course girls like to dress up, but Witchery clearly indicates the wrong signal. Withcery has angered many organizations, who believe that cildren and childrensclothing should be carefree and playfull.


Witchery did get a lot of free publicity, but unfortunatly fort hem, it was not good publicity. Perhabs it would be a good idea to pitch their ideas to a focusgroop next time, so they know what people think about the campagne before they start. One thing is for sure, the advertisements damanged their image.