Yes, washing with Dove soap will make you skinnier and whiter.
We talked about that ad here, as well.
I agree completely and don’t understand how between an ad agency and a client they could have ‘missed’ such a thing and not caught such a blatant poorly constructed ad that probably cost thousands to put together and tens of thousands to put in magazines. I thought these sorts of things were assembled by people with degrees who knew what they were doing.
I saw this ad running in my wife’s quebec-french mags (don’t judge me, that’s all I’ve got in the littlest library) for some time, and never blinked.
Saw it again on failblog (captioned “racism fail”,) so it definitely isn’t just you. (Unless the idea really was that it failed at racism.)
I think the intent with the “before” and “after” is pretty clear, and since the women are portrayed in the context of a lengthy and ongoing campaign associating the product line with diversity and respect and appreciation for all sorts of variety when it comes to beauty, all I got at a glance of that ad is not-very-subtle “LOOK! WE’RE INCLUSIVE!”
I think when you see yet another in a series of Dove ads featuring lineups of variously shaped and complected women in white bikinis, it’s hard to interpret in a way that is completely opposite from the message that they’ve been hammering out for eight years now.
Definitely subtle (not so subtle?) racism.
I didn’t get a racism or sizeism vibe from it at all. Maybe if there had been only two women, then I would see a correlation between the Before and After applying directly to them. But all I see are three happy women who have to be using the product, or they wouldn’t seem so happy.