I wrote to loveable to let them know how horrified I was to see this add several times. During a children’s movie that I was watching with my 3 year old daughter.
I also mentioned that I had thrown out my loveable underwear and would no longer be a loveable customer.
I may have waffled on a bit about the add being no better than soft core porn and what I thought about that as well LOL.
I am still to write to the standards board.

My letter back from Lovable- It reads like a joke:

Dear Martina
Thank you for taking the time to express your concerns over the Current Lovable Television campaign.

The creative was not developed to offend or suggest “soft porn” as you describe, but use Lovable’s cheeky tone of voice to demonstrate the new Colour names for our advertised product via fun Props that remind the viewer of Summer, Lemon sorbet, Blueberry milkshake etc.
This was the intention of the creative agency , the Lovable team and our brand ambassador. Lovable sell’s products to Women only and hence the advertisement has been placed in shows and Magazines targeting women.

The Campaign has been received well in general by our consumers, but we understand that lingerie advertising does indeed cause issues, whether viewed on Billboards or Television. The Rating that Lovable was given by Commercials Advice Pty Ltd (CAD) commonly used for rating Television commercials was a G Rating.

Your complaint will be forwarded to the relevant parties involved though and thank for voicing your opinion.

here is the response I received from Lovable – http://katierae.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/lovable-i-think-you-missed-the-point/

I’m disappointed but not surprised.

I just had a good look at the Jennifer Hawkins pictures again, and I only just noticed they were advertising different colours! I have seen these pictures several times and I only just noticed- because I was distracted by the ice cream licking and the suggestive finger sucking. Way to sell a product lovable…

Here’s myletter to Loveable…

Hi there,
I’m writing to bring to your attention my disappointment at the way your advertising undermines your alleged concern for “changing the culture surrounding eating disorders and body image.” (quoted from your webpage explaining the Butterfly Foundation).

I agree with you that this is a goal worthy of great effort, and I thank you for your promise to give 25% of profits from your online store to supporting the Butterfly Foundation. This financial support will doubtless go a long way.

However, I suggest that your company is actually contributing to the very problem you claim to be trying to fix. Your website says that you will attempt to “change the culture” through “…our brand values, communication strategies and design approach.” and yet when I see your ‘love colour’ campaign, I see a thin, sexy model standing in seductive poses, making seductive gestures which encourage men (like myself) to objectify her. Surely this ‘communication strategy’ is undermining the values of the Butterfly Foundation which you claim to support.

You claim on your website that you will only advertise using ‘happy, healthy models’, and while I’m sure that the models in your campaigns are healthy and smiling, they are not representative of a majority of women’s bodies, and hence contribute to the widespread dissatisfaction that women have with their bodies (which you mention on your webpage).

The ‘desirable’ ad campaign is sexually provocative (with a woman modelling for an artist in her underwear, posing in seductive positions). I believe this has the effect of strengthening current opinions that women need to be thin, tanned, and large-busted in order to be sexy. And even if it doesn’t say this much explicitly, it certainly doesn’t contribute to your stated goal of trying to ‘boost women’s self-esteem’. Instead, i think it contributes to the very problems which the Butterfly Foundation are attempting to address.

So I ask you to consider how successful you have been in supporting causes like the Butterfly Foundation with your marketing. As I said, I thank you for supporting them financially. But I ask you to please change your brand values, communication strategies, and design approach so that you don’t undermine your own and others efforts.

I look forward to hearing back from you. And I ask that you don’t simply send me a form-email thanking me for my feedback. Please respond to what I have written. Tell me if you think I’m wrong, and conversely tell me how you plan to respond if you think I’m right.

Regards,
Thomas McConaghey

I expressed my dissent to Lovable in the email below:

Dear Lovable,

Apparently, your company claims it cares about body image, that you want to change the culture of negative body image. I also notice that you are even sponsoring Body Image Awareness Week and you support a prominent eating disorder charity. Seems impressive, unless one comes across the blatantly sexualised images of a model who may seem happy and healthy, but whose body is far from realistic for the majority of women. Realistic for a mother? A woman with genes which do not follow the blueprint of society’s barbie-like ideal? Realistic for pear shapes, column shapes, or stocky shapes?

Well, I just want to say congratulations. Your campaign has succeeded in this way for me: when I see those images, I automatically feel compelled to cut down on eating, because I know I’m not likely to look “Lovable” in that type of attire unless I drastically reduce my caloric intake, to something below the recommended daily intake.

Now how does this relate to your campaigns of sponsoring Body Awareness Week and donating to eating disorder charities? If I have a leak in my plumbing, would it make more sense to increase my budget for water usage, or to invest in fixing the leak? It’s hard to convince myself Lovable has any kind of integrity as a brand while they blatantly contribute to the issues they proudly claim to care about fixing. I cannot support a brand that is content to not only allow such damaging images, but ESPECIALLY a brand which lacks integrity, that looks like it’s just ticking boxes to inflate profit margins. You’ve not only lost a customer, but you are also gaining a questionable reputation via word of mouth.

This is the response I received:

Dear Natalie,

Thank you for taking the time to express your concerns over the current Lovable campaign.

We take a serious view of the way women are portrayed in the media and in particular in our campaigns. We are very aware of the impact the type of images and messages can have on people.

We strive to represent happy, healthy and realistic body images that capture the essence of Lovable’s brand values of being confident and comfortable. We do not deny that the image has been slightly retouched for colour correction purposes, as is done by most advertisers.

The Lovable range is available in a size range from 8 – 18 and it remains affordable for all Australian women. We have purposefully chosen a range of women of different sizes to reflect this on our website, including our maternity models (size 14) and DD cup model (size 12).

We will take on board your comments to reflect more body shapes in forthcoming online store activities.

I would also like to share with you some resources from The Butterfly Foundation, who we are proud to be donating 25% of our online profits to this month: (A long paragraph of cut/paste advice follows).

I have responded with this:

Dear Justine, Diane, and others,

I have a hunch that much of this response is of the cut-and-paste variety, and the nature of the reply causes me to wonder how much of my email was actually read. Whatever feelings I had before are exacerbated by this insulting cut and paste from the Butterfly Foundation, the assumption that I have an eating disorder (thinking about cutting calories does not equal action), and the robotic insistence on Lovable’s values whilst completely ignoring the issue I originally complained about. The issues of conflicting values and ad campaign, of the ad’s effects, have been ignored. That my highlighting the actual effect of your advertisement was met with a token attempt at “informing” me, is just insulting – let alone that I was called Natalie, when my email was signed off as D. I am fiercely loyal to brands that demonstrate integrity in action and values, that honour their customers, and do not treat them as stupid. This has not helped to retain a customer, and definitely not helped to promote or uphold Lovable’s alleged concern for women’s body image. I understand you are in a position of loyalty to the Lovable brand, and have a job to do; at this point, however, arises an opportunity for this brand: will it continue regardless, or actually BE part of the change it alluded to when stating “We want to help reverse this thinking and encourage women to believe that Everybody’s Lovable.”

Sure, being profit-driven is good for business. The bit we don’t like is corporations saying they have concern for a cause, when their actions betray otherwise.

Negative stereotypes and expectations are not just rampant in our society, they are practically the air we breathe. Networking, boycotting, and word of mouth are our final freedoms. While media can be utilised to shepherd and pressure consumers into purchases, there will always be some of us who refuse to be pressured, who insist on living independently from the barrage of images we are expected to conform to, and who spread the word to help those we know who are overwhelmed with the struggle. I am doing this not just for myself, but for the women I know (and don’t know) who hate their bodies, starve themselves, cover themselves because of shame, who are emotionally damaged by today’s oppressive standards, and who have lost belief in their inherent self-worth. You’ll notice I have CC’d some Butterfly Foundation people, as I am interested in their view of this matter and Lovable’s subsequent handling of it. I will be updating progress of this issue on my Facebook page (which incidentally has over 300 friends, many of whom are keenly interested in furthering this cause also).

I look forward to your response, and more so to real change.

This 2nd response was CC’d to the CEO and Corporate PR people at Butterfly Foundation. It will be itneresting to see what they think of Lovable’s laissez-faire approach to their cause.

this is ridicules, does it ever end… everywhere u see an advertising its women,i call it soft porn,just disgusting! turn the tables around lovable. us women would love to see hot young guys in ads in underwear,cause we will then buy them for our guys

Well done to all involved in bringing this issue to the public’s attention. The comments on the Herald Sun website following their stories were disheartening to say the least – not all of us concerned are fat and lazy!!
After reading the replies from Lovable above, I was interested to have a look at their website. I note that in the “full figured DD+” section, only 2 of the images featured a so-called bigger model; the rest were actually Jen Hawkins. So is she now full-figured as well as being dangerously thin??
I also checked the Butterfly foundation website, and they appear to have removed links to the Lovable page; the only mention I could find of Lovable was in the short piece about the “Soiree” sponsored by lovable. Hopefully they have re-thought their association??