Posted: 12th August, 2011. Topics: airbrushing, beauty, Body confidence
Emma Taylor, Credos
Who defines beauty, and should this definition change to reflect what consumers – particularly young women – tell us they want? It’s a big question – and is something that Credos has been exploring as part of our Pretty as a picture project on airbrushing and body confidence.
In qualitative groups some respondents tell us they would like to see more diversity in advertising. But would they choose such images in practice? This week Credos launched a survey of 1000 girls which will test this contention. At the heart of the research is an interesting technique where we ask the girls to select which of four images (all of the same model, each airbrushed to a different extent) they would use to promote a product to someone like them, and what they consider to be ‘beautiful’.
Our preparation for the research revealed just how difficult it is to find an un-retouched image of a healthy-sized young woman in a bikini.
In order to obtain the appropriate images, Credos held its very own photo-shoot– a challenge in itself. Our photographer had to contact plus-size model agencies to find a young model of around size 12. As our chosen model, Bella, later told us, anyone over a size 10 is counted as ‘plus-size’ in the modelling world, and from our experience there are few plus-size models around the age of 20.
The challenges we faced in securing the right image reveals a lot about attitudes to beauty in our society today. We hope that our work will reveal more about how beauty is defined, and the implications for the advertising industry.
