This is an example of a non-traditional ad initiative where the real payoff is really the PR generated from the idea of the concept, rather than the results of its exposure to its proposed targeted user.

The Idea: After nearly a decade of promoting real beauty, Dove wanted to reach out directly to the art directors, graphic designers, photo manipulators who use Adobe Photoshop to manipulate, retouch and create the perfect (yet unreal) look in photographs of models and celebrities.

One of my first creative industry jobs was to cleanup and retouch the photos of models for advertising and beauty product displays. The work included the usual cleanup of small skin imperfections, but also more elaborate manipulation including whitening of teeth, enhancing or changing eye colour, or in extreme cases the complete substitution of a limb if it happened to be positioned awkwardly.

The Toronto offices of OgilvyOne created a Photoshop Action called ‘Beautify’ (an Action is set of instructions that can be completed with a single click click) was posted to the tutorial and software sites frequented by Photoshop users.

When the file was downloaded, installed and then used in Photoshop it reversed the recent retouching work, and added the message “Don’t manipulate our perceptions of real beauty” to the image. The Photoshop user could simply select undo to return to their original work.

Did any designers get duped with this? Highly unlikely. Will this continue a discussion about the manipulation of images? Absolutely.

[via Ads of the World]