Dove Canada says it has created a Photoshop Action that reverts edited images back to their original, un-airbrushed state.
The local division of the skincare company went black ops recently for its latest "Campaign for Real Beauty" stunt, going so far as to create and post the downloadable Action file to social media sites like Reddit (the post has since been removed by its user).
While the file promises to beautify images with a single click, in reality it reverts the edits that had been made to the photo, while adding a banner that says, "Don’t manipulate our perceptions of Real Beauty."
In a released statement and video explaining its campaign, Dove says the goal of the Photoshop file was to target art directors, graphic designers and photo retouchers -- those responsible for manipulating images – in an effort to "put a stop to the negative beauty messages we send and receive every day via our social networks."
Dove did not say how often the file was downloaded or if anyone was actually fooled.
The Action is part of a larger social campaign called #DovePositiveChange, which also includes a new Facebook app called 'Ad Makeover' that allows Canadian women to replace negative ads on the social networking site with 'words of affirmation.'
The decade-long Canadian campaign by Ogilvy (this video was created by Ogilvy Toronto) has been wildly successful, but not without its share of controversy – it's been accused of being both fake and hypocritical in its message.
The Photoshop campaign is already receiving mixed reviews on social media:
Check out the full campaign video spot by Dove below. What do you think? Is the Photoshop 'hack' just a PR stunt, or a positive message?
See some unsettling Photoshop fails: