Cara Delevingne's Rimmel London Ad Has Been Banned
Cara Delevingne's first campaign for Rimmel London has been pulled after a watchdog group alleged it was intentionally misleading. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in Britain acted on a public complaint that the model's ad for the Scandaleyes Reloaded mascara exaggerated the mascara's true performance, according to WWD. Rimmel London responded by pulling the ad all together, but insists it portrayed an accurate representation of the mascara's volumizing and lengthening effects.
This wouldn't be the first time a cosmetics campaign has been pulled in the U.K., where the rules about using false lashes and Photoshop-like effects in advertisements are far stricter than they are in the U.S. According to WWD, Coty UK Ltd., Rimmel London's parent company, "provided before and after pictures of Delevingne's eyelashes to the ASA, along with post-production images." The company claims they were well within industry guidelines when they used false lashes to create a "uniform lash line" and enhanced Delevingne's lashes in post-production to make them pop more against her dark eyeshadow. WWD notes that the advertising agency and Coty UK Ltd. claim there was no additional lengthening or thickening of the model's lashes.
But the ASA is not as convinced."Because the ad conveyed a volumising, lengthening and thickening effect of the product we considered the use of lash inserts and the post-production technique were likely to exaggerate the effect beyond what could be achieved by the product among consumers," says an ASA statement in The Evening Standard. "We therefore concluded the ad was misleading." The watchdog group ruled that the ad cannot run again in Britain in its current form, and therefore must be reedited or changed to more accurately depict the result consumers can expect from the mascara.
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