Marie Claire challenges ad agencies to change how women see themselves
Summary of story from Diva Magazine, 01 November 2011
For its annual ‘body issue’, Marie Claire South Africa asked six major advertising agencies to design an advert that would change the way women feel about their bodies.
The editorial tagline was “We don’t all have the same body type but, regardless of this we are all perfect.’’
The agencies took very different approaches to their brief.
From a wordplay on “IMPERFECT/ I’M PERFECT” to an annotated Barbie doll, complete with laugh lines and all the bits Mattel have carefully airbrushed out over the last 50 years, the adverts were thought-provoking and refreshing.
Another entry, created by Jupiter Room, normalised imperfection and mirrored self-judgement by portraying a (beautiful) model who was asked “If you were to get rid of everything you hated what would be left?”
The answer? Not much. Just as there is nothing wrong with the model’s body, the advert asks us to think in the same way about our own bodies.
The real message that the magazine succeeded in sharing was that although insecurities don’t disappear overnight and they can re-emerge like an irritating pimple that you’ve popped, you’re not alone.
