I’ve always been a passionate advocate for the health and business benefits of appearance diversity in advertising. It was the subject of my PhD, and I was the first to show in peer-reviewed published studies that more representative portrayals of both women and men not only promotes positive body image for consumers, it's great for business too¹ ².

In 2019, I took these insights and partnered with Dove, Getty Images and Girlgaze to transform the media landscape with award-winning Project #ShowUs – the world’s largest stock photo library created entirely by female-identifying and non-binary photographers.

A catalyst for Project #ShowUs was a Dove global survey that found 70% of women still don’t feel represented in the images they see every day. Images in media and advertising continue to impose unrealistic standards and limiting stereotypes which present a narrow view of who women are, what they should look like and what they can achieve. It affects their lives, relationships, health and opportunities. As the saying goes – you can’t be what you can’t see.

Dove also found that 71% of women wanted to see these industries do more to represent women of diverse physical attractiveness – including age, race, shape, and size. 

The message was loud and clear: it was time for a new definition of beauty.

Dove wanted to drive deep systemic change. Their big idea: build a new kind of stock photography library to shatter those stereotypes. Fill it with images of an inclusive vision of beauty. No digital distortion. Show female-identifying and non-binary individuals as they are, not as others believe they should be. Make it available to brands and advertisers around the world to create a more diverse and inclusive visual landscape for women and girls.

And so Project #ShowUs was born. I was thrilled to be part of an epic collaboration between Dove, Getty Images (the world’s largest international stock photo distributor), Girlgaze (a collective of female-identifying and non-binary photographers) and creative agency Razorfish.

Over the course of a year, 116 photographers from 39 countries created a library of 5000+ photographs. In a first for Getty Images, each of the 179 people photographed personally defined their search descriptions and tags for their pictures, so they could authentically portray themselves and their beauty on their own terms.

Dove launched the ground-breaking collection - created exclusively by women, female-identifying and non-binary individuals - with a multi-channel global communications campaign. The library was made available for the media and advertising industries to view, license and use.

“Phillippa provided evidence to show that if women don’t see themselves portrayed in media and advertising, then it acts to hold them back. She also provided the objective data that showed how interventions like Project #ShowUs can make a positive and significant difference to women and girls.”

– Sophie van Ettinger, Vice President Marketing, Unilever