Trey Taylor

Eng 100 Sec 02

Gail Wakulich

October 9, 2008
When Tush Comes to Dove

Itʼs no longer odd to see “big-boned” ladies gracing billboards thanks to Doveʼs

Campaign for Real Beauty. The campaign plans to increase the self-esteem of women

whilst persuading change in beauty ideals. This celebration of natural beauty is right on

cue, as nearly half of kids in North and South America could be overweight by 2010

(The Associated Press). With society increasingly expanding the weight scale, models

are becoming thinner and thinner by contrast to resemble coat hangers for high fashion

designers. Doveʼs Campaign for Real Beauty is the first to take up arms against the

idea that bones are beautiful, but the fashion industry is clearly unresponsive. Dove is

trying to shift beauty ideals for women, but change has hit a stand-still with people now

discovering that Dove is contradicting its own principles.

The brobdingnagian beauties so delightedly featured in the ads challenging

stereotypes actually caused controversy when it was leaked that the natural babes were

not so natural indeed. In an interview with photoshop master Pascal Dangin in “The

New Yorker” magazine, Dangin spilled the beans about the so-called “real women”:

“I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual

ʻreal womenʼ in their undergarments. It turned out that it was a Dangin job. ʻDo

you know how much retouching was on that?ʼ he asked. ʻBut it was great to do, a

challenge, to keep everyoneʼs skin and faces showing the mileage but not

looking unattractiveʼ” (Collins 6).

An outcry later ensued about the veracity of the Campaign for “Real Beauty”. People felt

they could no longer trust Dove, a subsidiary of Unilever. But this was the first of much

unrest to later follow.

Doveʼs Campaign for Real Beauty came about when a global study conducted by

Dove showed that women were unhappy with the ways women had been portrayed in

the media thus far. The beauty ideals being presented were clearly unattainable for

women, and the study revealed that only 2% of women described themselves as

beautiful (Etcoff 9). Furthermore, 76% of women wished that female beauty was

portrayed in the media as being made up of more than just physical attractiveness and

63% strongly agreed that women today are expected to be more physically attractive

than their motherʼs generation was (Etcoff 43, 26). Well over half of all women (57%)

strongly agree that “the attributes of female beauty have become very narrowly defined

in todayʼs world (Etcoff 27). With women seeing eye to eye all over the globe, Dove felt

a need to take action. However, although their campaign seemed a good idea, perhaps

a deeper dive into their parent company, Unilever, would have been a good place to

initiate the shift.

The Campaign for Real Beauty, although pure in intentions, was certainly not

bereft of advertising flaws. The one problem with Dove taking a stand against such

narrow beauty ideals was that it was trying to sell products based on women embracing

their bodies, but the pleasantly plump ladies in the Dove ads were targeting women

based on their insecurities. The campaign sort of derailed after women realized that

Dove was playing up their insecurities, contradicting their own campaign when
announcing that hefty women were acceptable, but hawking cellulite cream in the

process (Stevenson 2).

The principles behind Doveʼs Campaign for Real Beauty are not all bad, some

may argue. They are equipping the campaign with goals such as fundraising initiatives

to help young girls with low body-related self esteem and advertising that inspires

women and society to think differently about what is defined as beautiful (Dove

Campaign for Real Beauty). However, Doveʼs pro-femme concept working to

demoralize stereotypes of women in the media backfired when Unilever, Doveʼs chief in

charge, was targeted for their ads for Axe, one of the companyʼs subsidiaries that

“creates the same toxic environment addressed by its Dove Campaign” (Golin). A press

release by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood indicates that “the Axe male

grooming line is marketed to boys on the Internet, through advertising in magazines

such as Maxim, and on MTV where its sexist and degrading ads are seen by girls and

boys of all ages” (Golin). Moreover, “Axe is promoted by a highly sexualized female

singing group, the Bom Chicka Wah Wahs, whose suggestive theme song and video is

all about how the Axe aroma causes women to lose control sexually (sample lyric: “If

you have that aroma on, you can have our whole band”) (Golin). Unilever is also

responsible for manufacturing skin-lightening creams marketed in India. In a commercial

by Unilever, three Bollywood stars are caught in a love triangle, but the women with the

fairest skin is chosen by the hunk, leaving the dark-skinned woman to look into

whitening cream. Another advert shows an olive-skinned beauty pursuing a job as a

reporter, but she is constantly turned away because of her gloomy complexion, and not

until she uses the whitening cream does she get the job and become truly happy.
Although Dove is pushing major change, we need to dig deeper into the message, and

what we discover may be horrifying in reality.

This is not even the extent of what Dove sweeps under the rug. Another

movement against Dove by Greenpeace, the worldʼs most effective environmental

activist group, reveals that Unilever utilizes 1.3 million tons of palm oil every year (Beale

1). Unilever uses the oil in products such as soap and margarine. Greenpeace released

a commercial to put things in perspective that tells the story of a young girl named

Azizah, and is a high-speed hodgepodge of dying forest and chainsaws. Greenpeace

projects that in the search for palm oil, 98% of Indonesiaʼs forests will have disappeared

by the time Azizah is twenty-five (Beale 1). The beauty industry is to blame for this

tragedy, and with Dove accounting for $500 million in beauty product sales, Dove is a

chief culprit (Jeffers 2).

Dove is trying to shift beauty ideals for women, but to no avail. Their contradicting

principles and manipulating ads that feed on insecurities is not what one might call “real

beauty”. The expanding definition of beauty is an appreciable concept, but to bolster

womenʼs self-esteem while selling them firming lotion, is nothing short of hypocritical (by

request! a rant on dove 1). Dove is trying to initiate a beauty wake-up call, but no one is

answering. The notion of pluralizing beauty is bold, but the hypocrites at Dove need to

step back, and take a good look at their “Campaign for Unreal Beauty”. Itʼs time for

beautyʼs wake-up call.

 Works Cited

Beale, Claire. "Is Dove's campaign for real beauty destroying the world's rainforests?"

Claire Beale on Advertising. 28 Apr. 2008. 25 Sept. 2008 <http://

www.independent.co.uk/news/media/comment/claire-beale/claire-beale-on-

advertising-816393.html>.

"By request! a rant on dove." View from the bottom. 16 Apr. 2008. 25 Sept. 2008 <http://

thegirlriot.blogspot.com/2008/04/by-request-rant-on-dove.html>.

Collins, Lauren. "Pixel Perfect." The New Yorker 12 May 2008: 6-6. The New Yorker. 12

May 2008. 25 Sept. 2008 <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/

2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_collins>.

Etcoff, Dr. Nancy, Dr. Susie Orbach, Dr. Jennifer Scott, and Heidi D'Agostino. . Dove

Global Study: The Truth about Beauty. Sept. 2004. Unilever. 25 Sept. 2008

<http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/uploadedfiles/

dove_white_paper_final.pdf>.

Golin, Josh. "CCFC to Unilever: Ax the Axe Campaign if You Care about "Real Beauty""

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. 9 Oct. 2007. 5 Oct. 2008 <http://

www.commercialfreechildhood.org/pressreleases/axtheaxe.htm>.

Jeffers, Michelle. "Behind Dove's 'Real Beauty'" Adweek 12 Sept. 2005: 1-3. All

Business. 12 Sept. 2005. 25 Sept. 2008 <http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-

advertising/4211506-1.html>.

Stevenson, Seth. "When Tush Comes to Dove." Slate Magazine. 1 Aug. 2005. 25 Sept.

2008 <http://www.slate.com/id/2123659/>.
"Why the Campaign for Real Beauty?" Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. 5 Oct. 2008

<http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/supports.asp?

section=campaign&id=94>.