Thanks to complaints from a UK watchdog group, cosmetic giant L’Oreal was forced to withdraw ads for their brands Mabelline and Lancome. The ads featured closeups of, respectively, supermodel Christy Turlington and actress Julia Roberts The charge? The ads impute that the cosmetics in question are the cause of the lovely faces in the photos, when in reality the photos were digitally retouched.
Good for the watchdogs. Given that the cosmetics purport to be all a woman needs to make her skin look great, no digital retouch should be required. Or, for that matter, allowed.

For an example of an uncommonly honest ad, consider this one, which appeared during the 1960s heyday of Avis’s still-famous “We try harder” campaign. Fifty years later, it still makes me chuckle. More important, running it may have added credence to the claims in their other ads.
—Steve Cuno