Melissa Lui

With technology getting more advanced day by day, it is hard for advertisers to not take advantages of it. Undoubtedly, Photoshop is a good invention for the advertisement marker since it can beautify the pictures. Photoshop boosts up some of the colours that may not be very prominent in the background. In this way, these advertisements that are printed in magazines can easily attract attentions.

However, if Photoshop is misused, it can create false advertisement.

For example, if an advertisement is trying to promote a skin product, and the company decides to photoshop the model’s skin into perfection, the advertisement is producing a manipulative message. In my opinion, it will be immoral for the marketing industry to use photoshop as a way to lie to the audience. Also, there are many models in the advertisements who are photoshopped into a skinner version. In this case, it is not only immoral to the audience, as well as to the models. Why can’t the industry accept the natural body shapes or the beauty that these models impose? The industry is just reinforcing such artificial or unhealthy beauty that is circulating in the society. These false advertisement can potentially damage someone’s life. As audience is bombarded by the photoshopped images every day, they may feel like they are pressured into changing themselves to match the social standard or expectation.

Since beauty is socially constructed, why can’t the industry promote something healthier and more natural? It is necessary for the marketing industry to critically analyze the action of photoshopping and the consequences that a few clicks may cause.

Even though I agree with KRASHINSKY , author of the article, I decide to put on my critical lenses for a second here and ask myself, “what is the motivation of Dove?” First of all, it is obvious that Dove is trying to get some attention by revealing how other companies have used photoshop in their advertisement. They may also be trying to underlie a message which says we are different; our advertisements are real. By launching a campaign to support natural beauty for boosting girls’ self esteem, Dove is also marketing themselves. Dove is trying to use audiences’ sympathy and awareness of photoshop to buy their products in support of a self esteem education. How can buying their products change one’s self esteem or provide education? The answer is not included in the video. In an economic standpoint, every company is just trying to get some profits out of their advertisement by attracting more customers, more demands.

However, where does morality lie?