A few days ago, I received an email titled “Trend Alert: #FilterDrop”. And while I typically try to stay away from subject lines that have the words “trend” and/or “alert” in them, I was intrigued because it landed in my work email.
So I opened it.
Ah, #FilterDrop. Have you heard of it?
I hadn’t before I read this email, but here’s the gist: “Sasha Pallari (photographed below), a 29-year-old makeup artist and curve model, started the #FilterDrop campaign last summer calling for “more real skin” on Instagram. She criticized beauty brands for sharing content by influencers who had used their products, but clearly had applied a filter to the image” (1).
What’s even funnier is that had we not talked L’Oreal last week and touched on some of these topics, I would have had zero – and I mean zero – interest in writing anything about beauty brands or makeup (it’s just not my thing).
What I found particularly interesting and “on brand” for this this semester is the fact that the Advertising Standards Authority has taken action against misleading beauty brands. Specifically, “Brands will no longer be permitted to use social media filters in their advertising, as the ASA sided with consumers who complained that these images are misleading” (1).
This is a breath of fresh air for me – as both a consumer and a marketer – and as someone who likes to maintain a high level of trustworthiness, ethics, and transparency in my work and consumption.
I found this piece to be a really interesting and provocative matrix of both digital capabilities, branding, marketing, and ethics – which, at the end of the day, all lead back to… brand.
Sources:
(1) https://www.voxburner.com/blog-source/2021/2/12/filter-drop-campaign
(2) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKtmIu5ha20/
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