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IPA: Airbrushing 'not a major worry in advertising'
Marketing News |
28/07/2010
The majority of consumers are aware that images used in newspapers and magazines are retouched or airbrushed, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has claimed.
Hamish Pringle, director general of the IPA, said few people would now think they had been misled by a publication which included modified photography materials.
Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone is to raise the issue of airbrushing in meetings with the fashion industry and advertising industry executives this autumn.
It has been proposed that altered images should carry some kind of voluntary kite mark or health warning, in order to protect the interests of the consumer.
However, Mr Pringle pointed out that not only do many consumers realise that images are altered, but they also choose to enhance their own photographs such as those taken at weddings or posted on social networking sites.
"It seems that retouched imagery is absolutely embedded in the media world and increasingly in the personal/private world too," he said.
"For some reason people seem to like having altered images of themselves. Whether this is stimulated in the first place by what counts as idealised images of what counts as beauty I really don't know."
Mr Pringle noted that throughout history, people have made images of other people such as Kings, Queens and Emperors, and in the majority of cases, these are likely to have been idealised versions.
"We are talking about something very deep-seated here; I am not convinced that simply putting a kite mark on every single retouched image is going to do anything practical," the IPA chief stated.
Mr Pringle said that if the coalition government is serious about advancing such plans, it should conduct some proper market research in this area.
The Advertising Standards Authority says it currently receives only a handful of complaints each year about the airbrushing of images for promotional purposes.
Posted by Stephen Wilkinson
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