Category: Advertising

August 2008
A Whiter Beyonce
Critics accused L'Oreal of lightening Beyonce's skin color in this advertisement for its cosmetics.
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October 2004
Whatever It Takes
An ad released by Bush's 2004 presidential campaign showed a crowd scene from which the President had been digitally removed.
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April 2003
Louis Vuitton Designer SARS Mask
The fashion designer never actually included a SARS mask in any of its collections.
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Late 2002
The Misleading Steak Premiere
A government investigation concluded there was a disparity between the amount of toppings shown in this ad, and the amount on the actual sandwich.
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July 29, 2002.
Mid-Island Fish
This ad was supposed to express support for Long Island, New York businesses, but viewers noticed it showed a Seattle fishmarket.
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February 1964
The Vanishing Belly Button, 1964
Scandinavian Airlines placed an advertisement in newspapers throughout America. It featured a bikini-clad model posing on a rock above the caption "What to show your wife in Scandinavia." But the version that appeared in the Los Angeles Times had one detail altered. The editors of the Times airbrushed out the model's belly button. They said this was done in order to "conform to regulations."
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ca. 1950
Miss Perfect Profile
The head of a modeling agency added creative captions, such as "Miss Perfect Profile," to the photos of his models in order to get newspapers to print them.
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April 1920
Stotham, Massachusetts: The Town That Didn’t Exist
Weyerhauser Mills issued a series of architectural brochures, which included an issue about the classic, early-American architecture of Stotham, Massachusetts. The church shown above was said to be the meeting house of the Stotham Congregational Society. However, Stotham didn't exist. It was a fictional town created as a way to provide a coherent theme to some photos the editor had felt were "too good to be wasted."
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