Here's what Italian Vogue has to say about the campaign.

So was this the first of these "backwards videos" or do we know of an earlier example?

(See these previous posts: The Future of Publishing and "Lost Generation" by Jonathan Reed)

Complaints questioned whether effects shown in campaign could be achieved with Clean and Clear anti-spot cream

• Mark Sweney
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 January 2010 07.26 GMT
• Article history

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned this advert for Clean & Clear spot control after viewers complained that the effects shown in the campaign were achieved by using makeup Link to this video

A TV campaign for a face cream that promised to make skin look blemish-free has been banned by the advertising watchdog because the "after" shots were achieved using makeup.

The television campaign, for Johnson & Johnson, promoted the company's Clean and Clear Spot Control Kit.

The campaign, created by ad agency DDB London, cited a trial with 30 girls using "before and after" shots and their testimonials to show the effectiveness of the anti-spot cream. "A clinical study showed 100% of people had improvement in just one day," ran a voiceover. "After four weeks, they all had fewer spots, reduced redness and much clearer skin."

The Advertising Standards Authority received two complaints challenging whether the images of the actresses "before and after" could be achieved using the product.

Johnson & Johnson said that the girls used were over 16 and were not models or actors. In the before shots all makeup, except eye makeup, was removed. However, for the "after" shots, Johnson & Johnson admitted that a "light powder" was applied to the girls' skin to "remove shine from the T-zone" of the face.

The company said it did this to make sure that "the shininess did not detract from the results on the improved clarity of skin". Johnson & Johnson said that the shots were representative of the results that can be achieved with the product.

However, the ASA said that it "noted a marked difference in the appearance of the clarity of skin between the before and after shots".

"We considered that, in order to make the before and after comparison fair, both shots should have been taken under the same conditions (both without makeup) to ensure that any visible improvement was an accurate representation of what could be achieved with the product," said the ASA.

I am reading Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture, edited by Carried McLaren and Jason Torchinsky. The book is a funny, smart and sometimes shocking collection of articles from Stay Free Magazine and blog. I first came across Stay Free when I was researching the psychology of advertising and was impressed by their sophisticated take on how adverts affect consumers' decision making. They discuss in Ad Nauseam how advertising is often misunderstood, with people relying on an intuitive 'Advertising doesn't effect me' view or swinging to the opposite extreme of the 'Sinister Advertisers Manipulate Consumers with their Mind Control Tricks' position. Both positions distract from the very real, but not magical, power of advertising.

The book has a great discussion of Wilson Bryan Key's Subliminal Seduction, the book that launched the idea that subliminal, and often sexual, figures are embedded in random features of adverts such as in ice cube shadows. The idea of these 'embeds' is nonsense, of course, but great fun to look for and a great distraction from the real persuasive content of the advert. The book also has a chapter on the origins of modern advertising practice in 19th century pharmaceutical advertising (the manufacturing of ailments for which ready made 'cures' can be sold has been covered by Vaughan on mindhacks.com before, in relation to the mental health). Packed with critical analysis of the advertising industry, more informative history and some shocking examples of how consumerism has worked its way into many aspects of our daily lives, this book is essential intellectual self-defense, managing to be critical and aware without ever being sanctimonious or hysterical.

Cross-posted at idiolect.org.uk

The reason advertising works on most of us is that we feel there is something missing, that if we could only do or have X we could be happier, that we need whatever happiness they're offering.

If instead we could find completeness, find happiness, find contentedness ... advertising wouldn't work. We'd say, "Thanks, but pass."

And here's the thing, of course (you knew this was coming): you already have all that.

You just need to realize it, and internalize it.

You have everything you need for happiness, right now. The typical desires for more money, a nicer house and car, nicer clothes and gadgets, a big-screen TV, a super-successful career or business, etc. ... none of that will get you happiness.

Happiness is simple pleasures, is spending time doing what you love and spending time with those you love. Happiness is realizing the world around us, no matter where we are, is a miracle, is beautiful and filled with sources of joy.

Do you have eyes? Then you have the tools to enjoy the sky, the water, greenery, people -- all miracles, all wonderful. Do you have ears? You have the tools to enjoy music, and laughter, and conversation. Do you have taste buds? You are blessed with a symphony of wonders, in berries and chocolate and popcorn and pure water and mint and chocolate chip cookies and spicy Thai food.

These are the tools for happiness. Use them, and realize you are blessed beyond belief.

Live life by appreciating every moment as a miracle, and you'll want for nothing. Appreciate the people around you, for the crazy complicated uniqueness they are, and you'll need no further entertainment.

You have it all. So when someone offers more, you can now say, "Thanks, but pass."

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
- Lao Tzu