advertising techniques in the beauty and cosmetic industry

Carrying on from our lesson with Kat about advertising I wanted to do more research and have a look at how and why advertising is done in the way it is especially in the beauty industry. 

There is many rules in beauty advertising that images must be as true to the real image as possible, the product must be able to do what the image is advertising and must no mislead the consumer. One of the topics that interests me in make up advertising is the use of fake and photo-shopped lashes in mascara campaigns. As a make up artist it is known that mascara does not create the same look as false lashes as it depends on the brush and formulation of the product. 

"Advertised claims (including visual claims) should not misleadingly exaggerate the effect the product is capable of achieving. For example, lash inserts should not be used to create a lengthening or volumising effect beyond what can be achieved by the mascara on the model’s natural lashes. Lash inserts may however be used to fill in natural gaps in the lash-line and thereby help to achieve a uniform lash-line effect. This guidance is not intended to restrict the use of obvious exaggeration that is not likely to be taken literally. Note, however, that obvious exaggeration which consumers interpret as being indicative of a product’s capabilities e.g. lengthening the appearance of eye lashes, has the potential to mislead. This guidance is not intended to prevent the use of stylised images that are illustrating a concept or mode of efficacy rather than depicting the actual benefit to be expected e.g. diagrams and cartoons"

'Post-production'
The use of post-production techniques through the re-touching of photographic images requires particular attention to avoid misleading consumers. Advertisers should retain appropriate material to be able to demonstrate what re-touching had been carried out in the event of being questioned. This might include ‘before’ as well as ‘after’ images showing the effect of both pre- and post-production techniques as appropriate. The following are examples likely to mislead and are unacceptable: 
• Re-touching related to any characteristics directly relevant to the apparent performance of the product being advertised. For example, removing or reducing the appearance of lines and wrinkles around the eyes for an eye cream advertisement or increasing the length or thickness of eyelashes in an advertisement for mascara. 
• Adding highlights and shine to hair for a product claiming to produce shiny hair. • Removing hair ‘fly-aways’ for a product for flyaway hair. The following are examples unlikely to mislead: • Minor adjustments to correct for lighting problems and other photographic issues, provided the image produced reflects the model. 
• Removal of a few hair ‘fly-aways’ is acceptable, even in advertisements for hair care products except, as mentioned above, products for fly-away hair.
• Removal of skin blemishes provided this does not affect the impression given of the effectiveness of the product. 

Advertising uses all sorts of tricks to sell products. For example a lot of brands with big budgets use celebrity spokespeople and models to sell their products and appear in their ads. They also use the best tricks of editing and photography to make their models look as flawless and beautiful as possible. They also play on a lot of the psychological side of things with the consumers featuring couples happy and youthful which is all something we want. 

Re touching images

In Ken's lesson we looked at retouching images using frequency retouching which will be helpful when we come to the post production stage of our advertisements and editorial images. As much as it's a controversial topic the majority if not all images used in advertising and the media have been retouched in some way and that unfortunately is the society we live in. 

These retouched images are very interesting to me because it really amazes me on societies view on what is perfect. These images are so insanely re touched that it really is noticeable side by side to the original image. Though this is not to say make up and hair artists are still not needed because technically they create the base for the retouching artists.