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Criminal Sketch Artist Draws Women as They See Themselves and as Others See Them
- Breefield 14y agoThe sketch artist could have intentionally drawn the women as slightly disproportionate from reality just to make this piece more polemic. I don't see how that was prevented?
- strangestchild 14y agoAgree - especially given that this was funded by the Campaign for Real Beauty, and it wouldn't exactly have supported Dove's ad campaign if the pictures looked the same or the sketch was reversed.
- friendly_chap 14y agoIt wasn't. It's marketing. Pure and simple.
- pan69 14y agoYou mean; It was. It's marketing. Pure and simple.
- MichaelApproved 14y agoNo. OP is responding to the question "I don't see how that was prevented?" with the answer "It wasn't [prevented]."
- pan69 14y agoI misread. Apologies.
- fossuser 14y agoYeah he shouldn't have known when the person was describing themselves or someone else.
- jtheory 14y agoYup; this is a "great" idea that falls apart when you think about it a bit. The artist knows perfectly well what the intention is, and which group is which. ALSO, the results are going to be skewed by standard rules of politeness -- even given a person with a perfectly balanced view of themselves, the way they describe themselves to a stranger surely should avoid being too praising (or they'd seem narcissistic), whereas someone else's description of them would be skewed to the positive side, also out of politeness -- who knows if the person being drawn is going to hear this description later, or is a friend of the artist, etc.? It would be easy to do this better. Imagine if this were (seemingly) a study about the value and accuracy of police sketches. Use multiple sketch artists, and let them know their sketches are going to be tested by IDing from a large lineup. Some sources will be self-describing (i.e., someone very familiar with the face) and others will be someone with only a short encounter with the subject. This is a plausible (fake) study, and the remaining problems (with the real intent) are much, much fewer.
- xwowsersx 14y agoI agree that this "study" is completely unscientific. But I think it definitely opens up a direction for further inquiry. A counter to your point about politeness skewing the results is that the women who were shown the sketches of themselves afterwards clearly seemed to react in such a way that indicated that they realized they were too harsh on themselves, that they had negative views of their appearance which was unjustified, and that they were relieved/flattered to see how strangers saw them. So, it's not a proof of anything, but I'm just pointing out that womens' description of themselves seemed to be pretty reflective of how they genuinely viewed themselves.
- jtheory 14y agoQuite right -- I think there is something actually interesting here. That's why I was so frustrated that they just went with the publicity stunt when this could have been real. it would have been a bit harder to spin into a slick documentary, but it would have been much more valuable.
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- cristianpascu 14y agoWomen DO see themselves uglier then they really are. It doesn't matter if he exaggerated a bit. The effect is what matters.
- Houshalter 14y agoThat is common belief. On the other hand they see themselves in the mirror everyday and, I would think, they would likely have a far more realistic image of themselves, than a random stranger who just saw them for a short time. It would be really interesting to see this done under proper conditions rather than just a marketing gimmick.
- unalone 14y agoImage has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with perception. The interesting thing about this campaign is that it shows how strangers are far more complimentary about how people look than those people would be about themselves. We know our own perceived flaws far better than anybody else does; in our culture of image obsession, it is far too easy to assume that every person in the world is judging you for every little imperfection on your face and of your body. There have absolutely been experiments conducted about people's self-perceptions as compared to others' perceptions of them. This is nothing new. But it's far more interesting to look at than your average psychological study, and since it's not saying anything especially groundbreaking – does anybody really think strangers would be more critical of a woman than that woman would be of herself? – "interesting to look at" is what matters.
- LeeHunter 14y agoSurely you're not suggesting that this was (or should have been) some kind of scientific study? For all we know, they might have shot another 20 women who looked much better in the self-description than the stranger description. It's just an interesting visual way to tell a story about body awareness. And of course, the whole point is to reinforce the Dove marketing approach, which is still a lot more healthy and wholesome than the typical cosmetic pitch (i.e. you're not beautiful unless you look like a skinny white photoshopped supermodel)
- johncoogan 14y agoI completely agree with this, and I actually do think that they shot more like 10 women because at 5:37 in the video, a woman is smiling at what seems to be her own sketches, but they never made it to the website. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE#t=337s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE#t=337s
- Evbn 14y agoDove has a big tent that includes skinny and fat people, which is nice, but they still tell women that their skin is ugly.
- DanBC 14y agoYes, all of their ads feature people with great skin, which is a shame if you're someone with eczema or dermatitis pilaris or similar bad skin. Especially since those people buy a lot of product. They make money selling nice versions of very simple gunk. I haven't checked, but I hope they're not doing the science-BS of "skin tightening" or "lip-plumping" that other brands do.
- LeeHunter 14y ago"all of their ads feature people with great skin," I'm sorry, but that's just uninformed bullshit http://www.adverbox.com/ads/dove/ http://www.adverbox.com/ads/dove/ No, they don't show people with severe skin issues but really, that's a little unreasonable for a company selling skin care products. " I haven't checked, but ..." Ahem
- Zimahl 14y agoThe sketch artist could have intentionally drawn the women My thought was that we, as individuals, don't really know what we look like. Sure we see ourselves in the mirror but how much detail do we see? I see my wife all the time and could probably have a pretty accurate sketch drawn of her but if I had one drawn of me it would be pretty far off.
- aray 14y agoAs far as ad campaigns go, I have been impressed by Dove's work in blending very interesting techniques together to give people an "Aha!" moment of new perspective. This one and the photoshop plugin are for me the most surprising, but the entire "Real Beauty" campaign is well done.
- flyt 14y agoYes, and in the next commercial for Axe, women are objectified and treated as total objects by the men than desire them. Both Dove and Axe are Unilever brands; they just target different seems of the population with messages that they know will resonate. It's great marketing, not social good.
- flyt 14y agoSorry for typos; typed on iPhone with HN client that doesn't support editing :/
- uchi 14y agoTheir marketing campaigns in a nutshell: Axe: Get bitches Dove: Because bitches deserve to be got.
- josephlord 14y agoFor those in the UK/NZ/Australia Axe == Lynx.
- EliRivers 14y agoIs it just as foul-smelling when it's called Axe?
- mistercow 14y agoYes. And the amazing thing is that it despite its terrible potency, it doesn't even hide the smell of BO. Men soak themselves in it, and then they smell like they just got home from work at the cheap cologne factory and haven't had a chance to take a shower.
- dpolaske 14y agoDove, killing it in the marketing game. I'm seeing this post everywhere
- orangethirty 14y agoSome data as to why. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/unilever-fourth-quarter-sales-grow-78-percent http://bigstory.ap.org/article/unilever-fourth-quarter-sales...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- chiaro 14y agoPlease tell me that I'm not the only one astounded by the kind of doublethink that's being taken at face value en masse. This is a beauty company, and it's not giving a message of "you're actually more beautiful than you think", it's highlighting how insecure people are about their looks, and presenting their brand as the solution, now SOCIALLY as well as just aesthetically. It's masterful, but it's more of the same. Just more subtly.
- jtheory 14y agoIt'd be more grating if their main products were make-up; I think they're mostly on the soap/shampoo side of things -- which can arguably be more about "just be clean and you'll look nice" as opposed to "paint this gunk all over yourself and then you'll look nice".
- dEnigma 14y agoI'll still go with dirty hobo look, thank you very much.
- spinchange 14y agoExactly. They're saying women are beautiful as they are (or more specifically, more beautiful than they think), not that Dove's product (soap) makes them more beautiful. I don't think or expect our community at large to appreciate this distinction, but it's an important one and definitely not "more of the same" for this kind of gender-specific marketing.
- colinhowe 14y agoI'd love to see photos of the women to see which is more accurate (to my eyes)
- jtheory 14y agoThere's a documentary video somewhere in there.
- jsmcgd 14y agoI never knew that sketch artists were able to make such accurate drawing from verbal descriptions alone. Every time I've seen this on TV the interviewee is able to see and correct the developing image.
- notindexed 14y agoHeh reminds me a project i made 2 years ago. A local newspaper asked me for an artist intervention on a full page. To keep it short: I send my parents to a professional photofit guy from our national police (he never saw me, nor knows me, nor has seen a pic etc.) and made my parents describe me to him. It's a work about identity, how the people that are very close to you see you and ofc the obvious link photofits have with the medium newspaper. I removed it from my webpage (www.medium.lu) as i keep only a selection online so i exported a .pdf for u if anyone cares to check it out: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25637921/hn/identified.pdf https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25637921/hn/identified.p... Cheers
- StavrosK 14y agoAw, I opened it thinking it would be interesting to compare the fit with your photo, but there was no photo of you. This is just a sketch of some imaginary guy, then. What's interesting about that?
- moron4hire 14y agoThe wording of the title makes it sounds like the sketch artist was a criminal. The sketch artist was a forensic sketch artist.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 14y agoNo it doesn't.
- moron4hire 14y agoYes it does.
- moron4hire 14y agoPetulant replies receive in kind.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoEveryone goes on about Don Draper's "carousel" moment, but this is it in real life, in front of your eyes. Genuine, deep emotion used to make an association with a product. And the emotional experience is real, regardless of the marketing. This will be a super-successful ad, way beyond their work on this campaign so far.
- Colliwinks 14y agoGenuine? This seems so forced and fake it's quite painful. No person ever would reply "Fat with a protruding chin" when asked to describe their face.
- pessimizer 14y agoOf course someone would.
- speeder 14y agoOnce I dated a former model for about 6 months. She was one of those nordic women with big bones, literally, when she was a model you could see easily several of her bones and she was more or less masculine. When I dated her, she was overweight by her standards (but had a perfectly normal weight actually, she was underweight when she was a model), this made her "bonyness" get bit hidden and her body got natural feminine curves, also her face was very beautiful (you ever saw a ugly model?). Yet, I remember how odd to me it sounded when she wanted to have sex with me (I was not much sure about it, I was virgin) but with lights off. I was like: "Alright, you want to convince me to have sex, but with lights off?" Then she claimed that she was too fat and bony and she looked like a transexual... I was kinda shocked... But over time this did not really go away, it would not matter how much I would reassure her, or how much other men looked at me with obvious envy, or how beautiful she really was, she always for one reason or another thought herself ugly. This is one of the reasons the relationship fell apart... But I never forget it, I dated a woman that was rich, powerful and a model, but she kept thinking herself weak and ugly (specially, fat with protuding bones... So yes, there are people that would describe themselves like that)
- epo 14y agoI saw this yesterday and forwarded it to some women in my life, weapons-grade advertising.
- jdavis703 14y agoI see my face everyday and know all the details that make it ugly. I barely pay attention to such details on the average strangers face. The times I've been asked to describe someone for the police I was always surprised at how little I remembered about their looks. So I think this little "experiment" more shows the fallibity of eye witnesses.
- weirdchickalert 14y agoThat was a interesting way of showing insecurities.
- tocomment 14y agoIs there a way to see all 7 without watching a video?
- mverwijs 14y agoThere is: http://realbeautysketches.dove.com/ http://realbeautysketches.dove.com/
- opminion 14y agoThose wondering about the multiple ways this could be biased, keep in mind that by far the easiest way, in which everybody thinks that they are being honest, is by publication or "reporting" bias.
- kaybe 14y agoSo what would it look like for men?
- spinchange 14y agoAdvertising & marketing strategies to women are usually implicitly negative and designed to tie their value/desirability/self-worth to the additive product being sold or an unattainable ideal that the product hopes to fulfill. This is the complete opposite of that. So, marketing and unscientific approach aside, I applaud it on that basis alone.
- nateabele 14y agoSeriously!? We can't stop being cynical, hyper-analytical computer nerds for 5 minutes? This isn't a study. There's no academic rigor to apply. It is a commentary. It's a commentary that almost anyone who has either been a woman or been in a relationship with one can probably identify with or relate to. And yes, it is advertising. I have no doubt that no one walked away from that video not realizing it was advertising. So what? Advertising isn't allowed to say something positive, or dare I say, honest? What? Is it because they're a multinational and not a startup?
- newnewnew 14y agoBelieving in pretty lies is neither worthwhile or praise-worthy.
- nateabele 14y agoOh, I didn't realize this was a contest to see who could be the most sanctimonious. The video calls attention to the fact that women often focus on their flaws more than their positive features. If you find a lie in there somewhere, it's because you're judging it on the criteria of something it isn't trying to be, which says nothing about anyone or anything other than yourself.
- abc3 14y agoWhat if this is reinforcing an idea that's widely believed, but doesn't actually exist? Here's a story about similarly sensationalized story that preyed on women's insecurities: http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/newsweek_discovers_doomed_spin.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/newsweek_discovers_doomed...
- StavrosK 14y ago> It's a commentary that almost anyone who has either been a woman or been in a relationship with one can probably identify with or relate to. I'd go further and say that everyone who has been a person can identify with. It's a human thing to notice things about yourself and think that people also notice it about you, because you know yourself better. I realized years ago that I didn't look at faces as a sum of parts, when a friend I knew for more than a year told me his nose was too wide. I looked at it and realized that, indeed, it was a bit wide. I was stunned that I saw him every day for more than a year and had never noticed his nose. It's not limited to the same sex. A girl I know had visibly crooked teeth, and at some point she had them fixed. When I saw her a few months later, I knew something was different, but I couldn't put my finger on it until someone mentioned it. Or maybe I'm just super-unperceptive, I don't know.
- rodelrod 14y agoScientific research in this area points in the opposite direction: woman, like man, see themselves as more attractive then they actually are. In the following study, photos of the subjects were merged with photos of more attractive and less attractive people of the same gender. The subjects identified themselves more often in the more attractive photos rather than the less attractive ones, and even more often than in the non-adulterated photos: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/nicholas.epley/EpleyWhitchurch.pdf http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/nicholas.epley/EpleyWhitchur...