Twiggy Olay Ad Banned for Massive Retouching

The Advertising Standards Authority, the advertising watchdog in the UK, has just banned a magazine advertisement featuring iconic model Twiggy for the Olay Regenerist Definity eye illuminator, which boasts the ability to reduce wrinkles and dark circles. Because the ad in question made excessive use of retouching, it has been banned for misleading customers, The Guardian informs.

Over 700 customers, together with Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson, who has long been advocating for the need for heavily airbrushed photos to come with “disclaimers,” have complained to the ASA about the ad. Judging by the photo of Twiggy alone, the Olay product can successfully turn the hands of time in terms of banishing wrinkles and dark circles, which is clearly not the case.

Moreover, having it in beauty magazines sends a very disturbing message to women who might stumble upon it, because it hints that even a gorgeous lady like Twiggy needs to be altered beyond recognition in order to be deemed “acceptable,” the complaints said. This, in turn, might make the average Jane believe that, by comparison, she doesn’t stand a chance. Add to that the fact that she doesn’t have Twiggy’s brilliant and time-enduring career, nor her fortune, and only then can one begin to grasp just how much damage such an ad can do, critics believe.

“Swinson forwarded more than 700 complaints, gathered via her anti-airbrushing web campaign, that the ad had was not only misleading but also socially irresponsible, because it could have a ‘negative impact on people’s perceptions of their own body image.’ In its ruling, the ASA said that it considered that the post-production retouching of the original ad, specifically in the eye area, could give consumers a ‘misleading impression of the effect the product could achieve’,” The Guardian writes.

While the ASA agreed that the ad was massively retouched, it refuted claims that it was also socially irresponsible. “We considered that consumers were likely to expect a degree of glamour in images for beauty products and would therefore expect Twiggy to have been professionally styled and made-up for the photo shoot, and to have been photographed professionally. We concluded that, in the context of an ad that featured a mature model likely to appeal to women of an older age group, the image was unlikely to have a negative impact on perceptions of body image among the target audience and was not socially irresponsible,” ASA says in a statement cited by the British publication.