I know, it's no longer Women's History Month, but what a way to start the rest of the year! I feel very proud about what Dove, Getty images, and Girlgaze have done with this #showus campaign. It's about images that represent real women. I caught the article over the weekend and decided to talk about it today.
As a marketer, I struggle sometimes to find relevant images that fit the projects I work on. It is a bit frustrating that all I can find is the same "look" in images that depict women. Where are all the women that look like real women? Why don't they show women that look like me?
We do live in a diverse world and I feel that we're slow to catch up with reality when it comes to images that represent how women really look as well as showing us in important roles (because we are there...).
The article, written by Peter Adams, explains that "#ShowUs stemmed from global research Dove conducted that found 67% of surveyed women want brands to take greater responsibility for the stock images they use in their marketing materials. The study, which Dove claims is one of the largest of its kind to date, also revealed that 70% of women don't feel advertising and media accurately reflect them — a finding supported by a recent sharp uptick in Getty search terms like "real people," "diverse women" and "strong women."
So I am not alone in my fruistration. People are actually searching for images like this. Well, I think this article hits it dead on. I love the images that I've seen and you can even add your own images on the #showus website. The images other woman add are authentic representations as indicated in the website information I gathered below:
#ShowUs Authentic Representation
Project #ShowUs is changing the way media & advertising represent women.
- 100% powered by women from 39 countries, in front of and behind the camera
- Real diversity rarely seen in media & advertising
- True-to-life depictions, not staged sets
- No digital distortion, to show the world unfiltered beauty
- Self-defined beauty with every woman deciding how she wants to be seen
In the article Dove shares that "Opening up a large stock image library that includes more photographs of women, including transgender women, and non-binary people could support marketers' larger efforts to tailor their campaigns to these consumer groups, who are often underserved and underrepresented in advertising."
So kudos for these large enterprises who continue to capture reality. Hopefully it starts a trend for more affordable real life images of real people (I'd say Getty images is for companies with larger budgets- but the images are beautiful!). As a side note, in my search, I discovered Nappy.co. It's another image site that shows a nice representation of beautiful, high-res photos of black and brown people. For free.. Check it out.