Adnalysis (ad-nal-uh-sis)
Ability to analyze an advertisement and give your personal opinion.
Difficulty: Easy
Who can determine what beauty is? Are we brainwashed by the media which changed our perception of beauty? Take a look at this advertisement by Dove…
With the power of ‘Photoshop’, anyone can look like a superstar. This ad tells it all. Try comparing at the model in the studio and the final photo, real beauty had been distorted. Who are we to determine beauty? The person doing the photo editting may just be another victim of how media had portrayed beauty.
Have you ever thought of what beauty really is? Can you be sure that it was not your experiences that determined your judgement? Can you be sure that media you are in contact with, did nothing to sway your perception towards an “ideal” image of beauty?
By theory, perception is influenced by psychological factors and social factors. Media plays a big role in influencing us and changes our mindset. It may cause perceptual errors in our perception of beauty.
Why do some of us think that people who are fat are ugly? Why do we style our hair? Why do we wear make up? Why? Look at the ad again and think about this. Are we not victims too?
I’m a willing victim!! Haha..
I mean, I do agree that our ideal image of beauty has been shaped by the world around us, and especially in modern context, the mass media plays a humongous role in manipulating our principles and moral ethics. BUT, it is just one of the many inevitable global, even universal, phenomenon that is in the order of things to occur and happen, and we can keep raising the alarm; yet at the end of the day, nothing is going to change, not even you who brought this issue up in the first place — nor your instilled image of beauty. So why not just go with the flow and chill up the hill? =D
In a modern world where people often judge others on their first impressions, it could be said that appearance “how one is being perceived” plays a very important role in coomunicating the messages and signs of your attributes to the people around you but is such a perception flawed in itself ?. Though many of us pay attention to beauty as being pretty and the usual such and such , i would ask the audience to view the beauty in the normalcy, beauty in ugliness i say and i suggest. And perhaps in realising this , the world will be a better place to look and live in for i for one belive that beauty is not in the eyes of the beholder but rather in the eyes of the cultivated.
Meh…
check this out… http://seehere.blogspot.com/2006/08/celebrities-without-makeup.html
Feel better?
Joan: LOL. The same youtube ad is in that blog too. Anyway, I felt that those photos were just those ugly days of celebs. Most of them still look alright without make up.
Definately the media plays such a big role that it will cause some misperceptions in our mindset. Beauty is for one to decide, not for others to decide or even comment. What i feel is that having confidence is yourself will elude a special kind of beauty in you. So girls do not have to be so caught up with all the models showing their skins and bones and thick makeup.
saw this ad before. provocative thoughts no doubt. media has certainly altered our way of perception.
Hello. I feel that that media has definitely influenced us greatly nowadays. I do admit that the mass media has altered my perception of the word ‘beauty’ for me. Unknowingly, we tend to follow the beauty trend and try to dress like those who appear on television. However, I don’t believe that people should be slim and have a curvy figure to be beautiful. Everyone is beautiful in their own way, and inner beauty, i feel is most essential. (:
[...] came across the “Dove Evolution Advertisement” on my friend’s website [you can view it here: http://wearetrueheroes.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/adnalysis-dove-evolution-ad/, and there we see a plain-looking model get primped up for a photo shoot. The model ends up [...]
I’ve seen this advertisement. It is really interesting what photoshop can do these days. I want to look good too. I shall try it myself on my photo.
I have to agree with you on that. Such influence is very unhealthy, and like what mambojumbo said earlier, this inevitable phenomenon is just one of the many that is happening. Well, nothing has changed despite people bring up this issue, and i think nothing will ever gonna change in the near future. So as long as we know we are happy of who we are, thats enough, I suppose…! And those make-ups and such are just add-ons for the first impression, at the end of the day, we all know that it is the inner beauty that counts. Afterall, it is the only thing that lasts.
I LOVE THIS COMMERCIAL!!!
I really feel that its a good effort on helping the young ones understand that so much is going advertisements to make them look good. And that we are normal with little flaws=)
The one thing that i worry is, how much are we going on with the campaign.
Even DOVE, having advocate the campaign is selling beauty. Look at their other advertisements, are they not selling their products using external products such as the firming creams etc? because in nature that is WHAT their products are supposed to sell. So DOVE is quite a little hypocrite.
That doesn’t mean their commercial isn’t nice though and may even garner a good amount of fans for their products=)
Some of us attribute outside good looks to confidence. Its a vicious cycle made even more vicious by vigorous advertisements and commercials on looking suave, cool, gorgeous or thin.
Confidence is definitely the key but in Singapore really, be honest, how many fun loving, pug faced, fat individual is attached and is loved for their inner beauty by someone romantically as compared to those in another country say the USA?
Are we missing out on something important?
I think we are and its not going to stop until we wake up and realise it=) I think its more than skin deep that these advertisements and vicious cycle have gotten through into.
eileen: Yup! Having confidence do make your inner beauty shine so much that it becomes brighter than your outer beauty. That’s how’ll i’ll put it.
jeannie: I do agree that everyone is beautiful in their own way. Like one would say, “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”
chengwei: The only unchanging thing is change. Changes happens all the time and perception of beauty can change too. Nothing in this changing world is impossible.
diyana: I like the part that you said that DOVE is a hypocrite. They are afterall doing a marketing campaign, and main purpose is to try to gain more market share. LOL… What else can you expect from a firm aiming to boost their sales?