Dove Real Beauty Sketches
By Cassandra Louise Wibawa
Dove introduced its Campaign for Real Beauty in September 2004. Unilever, the manufacturer of Dove products, fielded a global study to observe more about women’s perceptions toward beauty. According to Adamson (2006), the Campaign for Real Beauty asks women to give thought to society’s definition of beauty, the constant search for perfection, and the way the media shapes consumer views. The Campaign for Real Beauty is a global effort intended to be a starting point to change cultural stereotypes about beauty, to inspire women to take better care of themselves and to feel more confident about who they are. Vega (2013) stated on the New York Times that their mission is to “create a world where beauty is a source of confidence and not anxiety”. Ogilvy & Mather (the advertising agency for this campaign), managed to use both traditional and new mediums for their advertisements.
The first stage of the campaign concentrated on a series of photographs of regular women, instead of professional models on billboards. The advertisements encourage passers by to vote whether a particular model was ‘Fat or Fab’ or ‘Wrinkled or Wonderful’ with the results of the votes being updated and published on the board itself. Accompanying the billboards were the publication of the “Dove Report”, “a corporate study which Unilever intended to "[build] a new definition of beauty [which] will free women from self-doubt and encourage them to embrace their real beauty” (Unilever, 2004). The series expanded into other traditional mediums namely magazines and print advertisements called ‘Tested on Real Curves’. Following this success, Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign received significant coverage from talk shows and news broadcasts, to television spots called ‘Flip Your Wigs’, ’Pro-Age series’, and the ‘Little Girl’s’ global campaign which Unilever managed to achieve a commercial ad during Super Bowl XL (Koistad, 2006). Later on, Dove extended their campaign by using the internet as another form of media. They created a few viral videos to host the Campaign for Real Beauty website. ‘Daughters’ was the first video filmed as an interview to show how mothers and daughters relate to the industrial and modern perceptions of beauty. The newest part of the campaign was released in 2013 with a video called ‘Dove: Real Beauty Sketches’, and went viral attracting strong reactions from the public and media.
Strengths
Dove used Mohan’s understanding of advertising and how it is not directed at selling but at achieving the objective of gaining acceptance for a worthwhile idea (2008). The goal of Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign is for girls and women to understand that their power and their beauty does not come from a tube or an airbrush of a cream, but rather from their own personalities and power (Bahadur, 2014). According to Adamson (206), Dove has represented real beauty for over fifty years. They wanted to take a stand and wanted to put the focus on aspect, as well as being the ones responsible for the definition of beauty to help women feel more beautiful. Ogilvy & Mather explained the three pillars to the Campaign is “to listen; to challenge and change stereotypes; and to talk”. One of the most compelling features of the Dove campaign has been its integration for different engagement approaches. The brand values have been portrayed through a long-running and innovated integrated campaign using above-the-line television, press and outdoor advertising, along with a significant presence in online and editorial (Hackley, 2010). With this, Dove managed to successfully combined the two models of interruption and engagement, which leads from traditional media and follows through online. Interruption meaning; marketing that is fundamentally one-way, and engagement meaning; marketing that is fundamentally two-way (Hardy; Hawkin; MacRury; Powell, 2009).
Weaknesses
Bahadur (2014) stated that Unilever, was the parent company of Slimfast, Axe and Fair & Lovely skin-whitening cream. She asks: how could a message about ‘real beauty’ coming form a corporation that sells diet products and advertises men’s body spray with sexist tropes about women possibly be authentic? To her, “[these products] could not possibly exist if women actually as a demographic believed that principles at the campaign’s core. Cellulite creams would not exist if women believed they were beautiful and enough as it is”. Not all agrees with the importance of the campaign places on physical beauty. Is Dove’s idea of change what we should be focusing on? In an April 2013 piece for The Cut, Ann Friedman wrote:
“These ads still uphold the notion that when it comes to evaluating ourselves and other women, beauty is paramount. The goal shouldn’t be to get women to focus on how we are all gorgeous in our own way. It should be to get women to do for ourselves what we wish the broader culture would do: judge each other based on intelligence and with and ethical sensibility, not just our faces and bodies”.
Conclusion
Although critics have argued Dove’s goal in trying to change stereotypes and the definition of beauty, Dove’s advertising campaign is still an example of a clever use of social branding technique. The campaign has generated extensive debate over all media channels from internet blogs to national press and television shows. What makes this one so special is that not too many packaged goods brands have been able to succeed in this area. To do so, Dove tapped into an incredible newsworthy story with a simple promise - to make more women feel beautiful everyday. From media coverage, to documentary films, the Dove brand has been able to get its story told just as it wants it told. That’s advertising as a power signal.