Airbrushed Advertisement Featuring Rachel Weisz Banned

An advertisement, which features a known actress, Rachel Weisz, has been banned by watchdog because of complaints that the advertisement was overly airbrushed. The Advertising Standards Authority, known as the ASA, made complaints that Weisz’s complexion was off and had been altered and changed within the image as a way for L’Oreal Paris to promote the Reivtalift Repair 10 product. It is believed the advertisement was airbrushed to make Weisz’s face appear smoother and more even than it actually happens to be.

The watchdog agreed and says that the advertisement has breached the industry code, providing an advertisement that misleads the consumers into believe the product performs immaculately and does more than it actually can do. They have ruled the L’Oreal cannot use the advertisement again because it is misrepresenting what the product can actually achieve for the average individual.

The ASA has said, “Although we considered that the image in the ad did not misrepresent the luminosity or wrinkling of Rachel Weisz’s face, we considered that the image had been altered in a way that substantially changed her complexion to make it appear smoother and more even. We therefore concluded that the image in the ad misleadingly exaggerated the performance of the product in relation to the claims (in the advert) ‘skin looks smoother’ and ‘complexion looks more even’.”

The co-founder of the Campaign for Body Confidence, Ms. Swinson, has said, “The beauty and advertising industries need to stop ripping off consumers with dishonest images.” She finds it appalling that these companies advertise products that supposedly provide amazing results when the results are simply exaggerated on the advertisement.

She believes that the banning of certain advertisements should serve as a wakeup call for advertisers who retouch and airbrush images too much. Aside from this advertisement being banned, there have been several other advertisements that have been banned, featuring Julia Roberts, Twiggy, and Christy Turlington. She is thankful that the advertising regulator acknowledges that retouching can be fraudulent and misleading to the consumers.

To add to this, the Royal College of Psychiatrists have said that the overly airbrushed advertisements can be harmful to the consumers, influencing them and making them believe they should look as flawless a the individual in the advertisement, without actually realizing that person has been airbrushed to look flawless. They believe that advertisements should be diverse, featuring people of all sizes and shapes, skin colors, and ages. Brands that show diversity and do not exaggerate performance will earn the trust of consumers.

L’Oreal says that they did airbrush the picture a bit but instead of airbrushing it a lot, they used lots of different light with lower resolution as a means of making sure that the picture was flattering. They believed they were allowed to do this.