Olay Will No Longer Retouch Skin in its Advertising Campaigns

Olay has announced that it will no longer retouch its advertising campaigns moving forward, in a welcome move to help reflect the modern woman.

Christopher D. Heiret, the vice president and general manager of Olay global franchise and North America skincare, said in a release, “We recognize that there are many conflicting expectations for women and it has always been our mission to use our platform to encourage the next generation of women to be unapologetically bold and true to themselves. Olay believes that, for many women, being inspired to face anything starts with seeing women who look like themselves in the ads they are seeing on a daily basis.”

The new approach will be marked with the ‘Olay Skin Promise’ logomark that will appear on ads in the US and Canada to show that they haven’t been retouched. The new approach applies to all influencer-created content, too.

The aim, the brand says, is to help “fill social feeds with images of confident and courageous women telling the stories of their strong skin.”

It’s a worthwhile (and welcome) move, particularly given research by McCann Worldgroup Canada that found that only three out of 10 women in Canada identify with most of the women pictured in ads.

The first women to appear in the brand’s non-retouched images are Busy Phillips and Canadian Lilly Singh. For Phillips, taking part in the campaign was important to help adjust the way women see themselves as a result of advertising. “For Olay to take this stand and say, ‘We’re about skincare, we’re about having you feel your best and having you feel like your most confident self,’ it’s a really big deal. The more huge companies like Olay that can stand up, the better everyone’s going to be. You want to see yourself reflected. You don’t want to see something that’s completely unattainable because that’s not real.”