Open Mouth, Insert Foot

In the past week, a lot of controversy has surrounded Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, since master re-toucher Pascal Dangin revealed that he worked his magic on the ads.

Should an advertising campaign celebrating real women be allowed to use the same re-touching technology they are fighting against?

Originally revealed in Advertising Age, quotes from Dangin seemed to imply that the women themselves were touched up, saying 'Do you know how much retouching was on that? But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone's skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.'" Now, Dangin is recanting, saying that he only retouched the set and lighting, not the women themselves, and is in fact saying he never worked on the campaign in question - just a later Dove campaign launched in 2007.

Either way - the blow against Dove's integrity could be a tough one for consumers to swallow. I doubt they will see a major drop in sales, but there could be a decline in "brand love" for this fem-friendly brand.