The National Advertising Division has just banned Photoshop in cosmetic ads. Apparently, it’s OK to show this woman’s head floating in space detached from her body, but it’s not OK to misrepresent the state of her eyelashes.
What does this mean for us? First of all, there is an industry watchdog group that can ban software that we have to watch out for. Secondly, while the ban applies only to cosmetics, we shoot food for our clients and we hire food stylists to come in and make our clients’ food look as appetizing as possible, without misrepresenting the product that gets delivered to the table. In post-production, we use software that colors the final picture to make the most of the color of the food, while drawing the eye to the food. We’re already aware and sensitive about misleading the public, but you have to make some effort to display the food as attractively as possible or you run the risk of looking like something out of Secrets of Louisville’s Chefs.
It just seems to me that if you can’t sell a product based on its actual merits, it doesn’t deserve to be in the marketplace. I just wish the NAD would ban the font Fajita.
2024 Predictions
Thanks to everyone who responded to our 2024 Predictions survey last month. While the sample size wasn’t quite the size of a Pew or Nielsen,