Do women like real or imaginary body shapes?

It is a Sunday so I can be allowed one slightly off-message blog post.

This article is about Nike's new promotional campaign aimed at women has joined the vogue for "real people advertising" by jettisoning whippet-thin models for ladies with more "lifelike" figures.

"I have thunder thighs," proclaims one the company's new adverts, which depicts a woman standing in running shorts, displaying muscular, but rather stout, upper legs.

The world's largest maker of athletic shoes now apparently wants to celebrate the body types most women have, rather than those to which they aspire.

The woman in the "thunder thighs" advert says her legs may be "unwelcome in the petite section", but goes on: "They are cheered on in marathons. Fifty years from now I'll bounce a grandchild on my thunder thighs."

Another of the billboards pictures a well-upholstered bottom in shorts with the full-frontal slogan: "My butt is big". The woman in the advert goes on to describe her rear as "a border collie that herds skinny women away from the best deals at clothing sales".

The Nike adverts are calculated to appeal to women who are not waif-like, but equally are not obese. The wording of the campaign makes clear these women exercise, but realise they are working with the body shape nature has dealt them.

In the article the editor of the marketing website Brand Republic, said: "We can expect to see more companies going down this road.”Consumers get annoyed by what they see as the unreal supermodel images in advertising, and they want to see something that talks to them about their lives. "Something that promotes a positive image of ordinary bodies is talking straight to the consumer."

The sports company's campaign follows the heavily publicised Dove beauty products (Unilver) "Real Women" adverts of 2004, which featured six women, none of them professional models, who stripped to their underwear to demonstrate how Dove supposedly worked on "real curves".
How strange that a couple of weeks back the same Brand Republic carried an article that said a nationwide survey of women aged between 15-72 years old, carried out by the female marketing specialists Proficiency Group, found that modern advertising slogans such as "Real women have real curves" and "real life Mum in a million" are "irritating" and are turning women off from purchasing the items.

Who do you believe, the Proficiency Group or Nike and Unilver. Let me think a nano second. Dick Stroud www.20plus30.com