Two companies aimed at similar demographics trying to promote the same body image positivity, but they are going about it in two completely different ways. Victoria's Secret's The Perfect Body Campaign versus Aerie's Untouched Campaign.
Aerie's Untouched Campaign was launched to challenge the idea that all girls/ women are supposed to be shaped like supermodels and that there was only one type of body size. The Untouched Ad Campaign featured women of all different shapes and sizes who hadn't been retouched in any way shape or form, they took the what you see is what you get approach and as a result sales increased 36 percent withing the first fiscal year of the campaign according to Reporters over at huffington posts . Now 36 percent increase might seem like a big deal and for the company it was, but the problem lies within Aerie's actual product. Such a postive message in the Ad campaign only for it to fall flat. The untouched campaign was supposed to be about women of all body sizes being sexy and beautiful but aerie doesn't have products that support all these women. The Largest bra size they go up to is a 38DD and the largest size for panties is simply an extra large. If you don't believe me check out their site. So for an ad Campaign to support all sizes you would think they would at least have a large variety of sizes for these women that they are praising and encouraging to be their natural selves.
Then you have Victoria's Secrets (VS) who launched its super controversial "The Perfect Body" Campaign that featured its standard "Angels" and Angel Sized models. The problem with this campaign was that VS didn't feature models of all body types although they carry products that go up to a 40DDD (Click here for Proof) VS attached that perfect body type to the women that they pictured in their ad. The purpose of their campaign was to promote their new "BODY" bra that was made for all women no matter the shape or size. However the way the campaign translated was "this is the perfect body" and although that wasn't the intention it caused a decrease in sales according to business insider and a lot of backlash.
When it really comes down to body image campaigns they can really be hit or miss and honestly no one is ever going to get it right. There is no way to capture an image that represents every single body type in the world because EVERYONE is different. Although both of these campaigns had their successes they were not met without backlash. No matter who you choose to shop with someone is always going to be feeling left out and while that's super unfair, unfortunately that's how the cookie crumbles.
I believe the representation of a perfect body that the media portrays is completely irrelevant. The ideal body that the media wants most of the time for women is skinny, white, no curves, and honestly no sign of fatness on the human body. Which sometimes can by inhumanly impossible. When it comes to men in the media the opposite of skinny is being portrayed. The media wants to portray the ideal male as being built and tan. Which still can be inhumanly impossible and cause an unhealthy lifestyle at some points. There has been a theory shown named Social Comparison Theory which was proposed by Leon Festinger in the 1950’s. According to Festinger's theory, human heavily rely on their external self on which eventually form a self-perception. These external ideas can come from people they know in real-life or through the popular celebrities in the media. This can lead eventually to positive or negative comparisons depending on whether the ideas can make them feel superior or inferior by comparison of their image. In the case of physical attractiveness, seeing media celebrities presenting a certain standard of beauty leads to positive effect which can than lead to increased action to resemble that standard.
ReplyDeleteWhens someone says "the perfect body" it's almost makes you say back, "the perfect body according to who!" Victoria's Secret is such a beauty and outer looks themed company that it's hard to believe they would actually throw a campaign focusing on all body shapes and sizes. It looks like what they did is simply use women of different races and didn't even go outside the box on anything else. A company by the name of Zara, did a love your curves campaign and surprisingly enough guess what? The spokespeople were two girls who are thin as bone. It can question the views of what it means to have curves and what it really means to be a certain size. Even when we spoke about the Dove campaigns, we questioned what the real message behind their ads were. At the end of the day, when we have to tell a woman to love herself because others see her as pretty, or that she doesn't actually have to look like the VS model to be unique, it could be farther from helpful. It does seem that the Love Your Body Campaigns aren't really working in our society and it shouldn't be the sexy lingerie companies promoting these things unless they question the real standards of beauty in all aspects of the company not just the ads.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has their own opinion on what "the perfect body" is. I love the fact that there are brands out there trying to promote self confidence no matter your size and trying to create some diversity with their models but you cannot please everyone. Just as you said with Arie, they promote one thing and sell another. Another thing is companies that actually to sell clothing for just about any size such as Forever 21, you only see a fraction of items to chose from in the "plus size" section compared to the rest of the brand. So instead of being able to pick from 1,000 dresses if you wear a size 12 or smaller, you get to pick from 10. I personally love the fact that we are finally seeing some diversity with our models and more stores are caring more sizes but we as a society still have a ways to go.
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