Good for PR?

This week Cindy Crawford opened up about a picture that was leaked to the press in February. The image which illustrates what a 50 something year old woman would look like, made headlines everywhere with POSITIVE reactions. In a world where everyone is looking to shred celebrities to pieces, it was shockingly taken with approval and admiration.

This week she claimed the image was retouched to make her look worse; which one can choose to believe, but does it really matter?

After this photo was leaked she did not speak out or contest the journalist who leaked the photo, instead she chose to sit back, keep quiet and ride the good wave of publicity. Or at least that’s probably what her publicist recommended she do.

PR – Opportunities or threats?

This brings up the question of whether or not Photoshop is a good thing or a bad thing for the PR industry. If done correctly it can be beneficial but one wrong airbrush and it can be disastrous.

Some positive outcomes of Photoshop include:

–          Creating a more aesthetically pleasing image

–          Photoshopping can be fun and seen as an art form

–          It can be used as a persuasion tool for viewers, a (great) picture is worth a thousand words after all

On the other hand some of the cons are:

–          It creates a false perception of the object, ultimately manipulating the viewers desires

–          Viewers are left with a sense of lowered self-esteem, younger women especially are left with a need to conform to unrealistic body images

–          One mistake can damage a company or brand’s image

One major Photoshop faux pas was Kate Winslet’s cover of British GQ in which they slimmed and stretched her out so much that even she spoke out in outrage over the manipulation of her picture. The GQ PR team had a lot of cleaning up to do after that debacle.

In Cindy Crawford’s case, the ugly-fication was warmly welcomed by viewers which could mean that people may be ready for a less Photoshopped world with more realistic role models, images or brands.