Only four percent of women worldwide consider themselves beautiful according to Dove, whose latest installment of its famed Real Beauty campaign presents a social experiment to dispell negative personal perceptions. 

The tagline of the campaign, "You are more beautiful than you think," demonstrates the disparity between a woman’s self-image and a stranger’s perception, playing on the common saying , "You are your own worst critic."

Created by Ogilvy Brazil, FBI-trained artist Gil Zamora, an forensic expert who has sketched more than 3,000 eye witness reports, first drew portraits of seven women of different ages and backgrounds according to their own description, followed by sketches of those same women according to strangers who had just met them on the same day. 

In the "Dove Real Beauty Sketches" video (watch below) produced for the campaign, the participants say things like, "My mom told me I had a big jaw," "I kind of have a fat, rounder face," and "I'd say I have a pretty big forehead."Continue reading...

"Acting!" That's the NRA's much anticipated response to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" ad featuring a gun owner who admits to supporting comprehensive background checks for gun purchases.

The NRA claims that because the organization will not give out the name of the ad's star, he must be an actor. Also, because he's mishandling the gun in the ad—something no real pro-gun owner would ever, ever do—he must be a plant. Now one blog is offering a bounty on the actor's identity to prove the NRA correct.

It's the latest turn in the increasingly petty back and forth between gun rights and gun control advocates.Continue reading...

Trouble is brewing between Kraft Foods and Starbucks. The one-time partners have turned courtroom rivals over the $6.6 billion ground coffee category and the former’s advertising claims for its Gevalia Kaffe brand, which Kraft touts as "an exclusively smooth yet rich coffee experience that has been perfected by Swedes since 1853."

In its latest Gevalia campaign, Kraft says a blind third-party taste test “found nearly 60 percent of coffee drinkers preferred Gevalia's House Blend over Starbucks House Blend, versus 34 percent favoring the latter.”

Kraft’s premium coffee brand is leveraging its commissioned survey of U.S. adults to the hilt with its new TV campaign featuring a Swede named Johan, who is seen in the coffee aisle at a grocery store telling shoppers about the taste test while standing next to displays of ready to take home packages of Gevalia and Starbucks coffee.Continue reading...

In a day where digital design renders face-lifts, tummy-tucks and general tune-ups de rigueur, Dove remains an innovative stand-out as they extend their "Real Beauty" campaign beyond advertising. 

33 million women made over advertising that highlighted their insecurities and impacted their self-esteem as part of the Dove Ad Makeover campaign last year, and in honor of International Women's Day, the brand is reprising the campaign and taking it global.

The Dove Ad Makeover invites women to send positive messages to other women through a Facebook application. "Dove has always listened to women and we feel that International Women's Day is the perfect time to once again inspire them by bringing our Ad Makeover Facebook app to America and to 18 countries around the world," said Rob Candelino, VP Unilever Skincare, in a press release.

The Unilever-owned brand is refreshing its long-running, and highly acclaimed "Dove Campaign for Real Beauty"—which fights unrealistic portrayals of women while pushing for realistic, positive ad messaging—with a social media-promoted Photoshop Action that works like a Trojan Horse by leveraging the element of surprise on those responsible for "unreal beauty" images in advertising.Continue reading...

Marketers beware: think carefully before placing promotional messages that require disclosures or disclaimers to avoid being deceptive or unfair, according to new regulations announced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC has revised its Dot Com Disclosures guide to reflect the rise of mobile platforms, leaving no room for lack of requisite disclosures even in smaller spaces with finer print. The original guide, released in 2000, pre-dated smartphones, tablets and mobile—not to mention the dominance of social media as a marketing platform.

The new guidelines, released Tuesday, emphasize "that consumer protection laws apply equally to marketers across all mediums, whether delivered on a desktop computer, a mobile device, or more traditional media such as television, radio, or print."Continue reading...

One thing can be said for Lynda and Stewart Resnick, the owners of Paramount Farms and the POM Wonderful and Wonderful Pistachios brands: They're certainly aggressive. Wonderful Pistachios is taking on Frito-Lay with its first Super Bowl commercial next month, for instance. And the Resnicks signed on as title sponsor for director Morgan Spurlock's 2011 film about product placement.

So it isn’t surprising that the billionaire philanthropists behind the two highly successful brands aren't backing down in their fight with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over whether their advertising can claim significant health benefits tied to POM.

After more than two years of wrangling, Federal regulators this week released their final ruling against POM and its pomegranate juice, saying advertising for the juice — such as a 2012 print ad headlined “Cheat Death” that aimed to rebut the FTC's case against the brand — made misleading claims about the drink’s health benefits. Continue reading...

Despite making billions of dollars every year, it likely isn’t always fun working in the tobacco industry. After all, people are always trying to stick extra taxes on their product or completely eliminate any branding from the packaging or sticking images of awful possible side effects such as dying on the packages. 

The tobacco industry, which is being pressured worldwide to be more forthcoming about the dangers to consumers, took another hit Tuesday. A US federal judge ruled Tuesday that tobacco giants such as Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard Tobacco, and British American Tobacco to buy a slew of advertising on various media to fill the public in on the health dangers of smoking and basically admit they lied, CNN reports.

So American consumers can now look forward to seeing ads in their newspapers and on television that say such things as "Smoking kills, on average, 1,200 Americans. Every day." Or perhaps: "More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined." And if that wasn’t enough: "Secondhand smoke kills over 3,000 Americans each year."Continue reading...

The basic facts have been established: Hyundai and Kia tested the mileage of most of their car fleets incorrectly and made false claims of 40 mpg — too high by 1 to 2 mpg — for a total of six of their nameplates. The U.S. EPA investigated, concluded wrongdoing and slapped the brands' wrists. The companies have admitted wrongdoing, moved to change their mileage ratings on stickers and other communications materials, and launched a program of reimbursing owner "victims" with debit cards for extra gasoline.

But what's more important about this incident is a big unknown: How will it affect the Hyundai and Kia brands in the U.S. market, which has been burgeoning for five years now as Japanese and American competitors each have encountered various sorts of difficulties? It could easily sour Americans on the two sibling brands. Clearly, someone at the company strained to deliver the 40-mpg ratings, because the mileage "gains" now shaved by correct testing procedures just happen to have dropped each of the models below the magic level of 40 mpg.

"We are extremely sorry about these errors," John Krafcik, head of Hyundai in the U.S., said in a statement. But apologies and gasoline cards alone may not cut it.Continue reading...