Now, this is a new marketing gimmick. Levelling with your audience. Like, telling them how it really is, not how you'd like them to think it is.

	Its products will not change lives. It refuses to portray images of perfection. It is opting for the anti-sell of realism.	The beauty industry thrives on promising the impossible. Strip away the promises, however, and there isn't much left to peddle. Yet this is exactly what The Body Shop plans to do. The company is launching a strongly worded campaign designed, it claims, to expose the tyranny of the beauty industry and to encourage women to feel comfortable with themselves, irrespective of their age or size. Bravely, the company also makes the radical admission that its products will not change lives. It refuses to portray the images of perfection conventionally promoted by its competitors. Instead it is opting for the anti-sell of realism. From tomorrow, posters will appear in Body Shop windows bearing the message: There are 3 billion women who don't look like supermodels and only 8 who do. The figurehead for the campaign is red-haired Ruby, a voluptuous pink plastic doll with love handles created by design agency HOST International. A lifesize Ruby will tour the country to spread the word. Customers will also be encouraged to take home a copy of Full Voice, an in-store magazine short on beauty tips but big on arty shots of large women, and inspirational slogans (inner strength ... control a woman's body and you control a woman's mind). In a final flourish, Anita Roddick, the founder of The Body Shop, sets out her philosophy: "... we do not lie to women ... we try to expose the stereotypes that make so many women feel they'd be better off shutting up, going on a diet and having a facelift ... " The magazine also makes the kind of promises you won't see anywhere else: "The Body Shop products won't change your life. They won't make you more popular ... Does this help to sell our moisturisers? Probably not ... We want to change how you feel about the way you look. If we can help you feel good, then we have given you something you can't buy. A sample of self-esteem." It's a laudable effort. But isn't The Body Shop in the business of selling beauty products? And will customers really want to buy from a company which believes in celebrating cellulite, wrinkles and bad-hair days? And surely, however right-on The Body Shop likes to be, this bid for attention is nothing more than an alternative marketing strategy?
	We want to change how you feel about the way you look. If we can help you feel good, then we have given you something you can't buy. A sample of self-esteem.	Sue Tibballs, the company's women's affairs campaigner, is predictably earnest. The campaign is an honest attempt to spread a message that there is no one beauty ideal, she insists; whether or not the company sells more facial scrubs is neither here nor there. "Body Shop has never marketed its products by saying they will make you look prettier or better, unlike other companies, which play on women's insecurities," Ms Tibballs says. "We prefer to think of our products as tools of self-expression. And we use employees, not supermodels, on our promotional material." Nor is the campaign about being anti-thin or pro-fat. "It's about attitude, about saying there is no right size or wrong size. We sponsored some research showing that, while women are looking at fashion magazines, their confidence drops. Why are so many healthy and beautiful women struggling to accept themselves? We are just saying to the beauty industry - let's break out of these stereotypes. "And as far as the fashion industry is concerned, why should clothes look best on a 6ft, six-stone model? Supermodels actually look very strange in the flesh, because they are extraordinarily tall and thin. Fashion photography is about the setting and the clothes - I am sure if you put a size 14, 40-year-old in the right setting and the right clothes, they would look beautiful, too." The struggle to break the mould of conventional beauty already has some heroines, namely the alluring, size-14 Sophie Dahl and Sara Morrison, who featured in Vogue. However, while Sophie can trade on her striking face, novelty value and exotic lineage, larger models continue to languish. But Alexandra Shulman, Editor of Vogue, says that, despite the "incredible interest" in the Sara Morrison pictures, there are no permanent plans to feature larger models: "Sample clothes are made in size 10. Some models are size 12, because size 12 on a 6ft model is still thin. I don't think, at the end of the day, that readers want to see fat women. There is an element of fantasy and aspiration about fashion magazines, and women don't want to open the pages and see themselves. They don't want to see scrawny models either." So, as an awareness campaign, The Body Shop's may not have much effect. But as a marketing ploy? "Well, it's good publicity, isn't it?" says Shulman.