Overview

#IAmPerfect is a Twitter hashtag campaign started by a group of British university students in response to the "Perfect Body" advertising campaign launched by American lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret in late October 2014. The hashtag is accompanied by an online petition at Change.org, which demands an official apology and revision of the ad copy from the company. Within 72 hours of its launch, the petition has gained over 16,000 signatures, or roughly two thirds of the supporters required to reach its goal.

Background

On October 13th, 2014, Victoria's Secret^[1] introduced a new line of bras under the label "Body," along with several poster advertisements featuring a group of slim-bodied models in underwear and the tagline reading "Perfect 'Body,'" with the word "Body" wrapped in quotations to highlight the name of the line. Throughout October, the advertisements were placed on storefront display in several British stores, as well as on the company's U.S. website.

Notable Developments

Online Petition

However, the campaign mostly remained out of controversy until October 28th, when an online petition was submitted to Change.org^[2] by Frances Black, a 22-year-old student at Leeds University, who decided to seek an official apology and revision of the tagline after spotting one of the adverts while walking through Trinity Shopping Centre. In less than a week, the petition garnered more than 19,500 signatures, or over three-quarters of its goal (25,000 signatures).

#IAmPerfect

As the Change.org petition began to take off in the social media and the news, many critics of the company's ad campaign took their reactions to Twitter with signs featuring the hashtag #IAmPerfect.^[3] According to Topsy^[4], the hashtag was used more than 4,300 times in the first 72 hours of the petition's launch.

Parodies

On October 30th, Dove posted a parody of the Victoria's Secret advertisement featuring female models of all sizes and the hashtag (shown below, left), which accumulated more than 300 retweets and nearly 500 favorites in the first 72 hours. The next day, underwear clothing company Dear Kates tweeted a similar parody photo of its own (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References