Dove Campaign for

Real Beauty

The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a worldwide marketing campaign launched by
Unilever in 2004 aiming to build self confidence in women and young children.[1] Dove's
partners in the campaign included Ogilvy & Mather, Edelman Public Relations, and Harbinger
Communications (in Canada) along with other consultants.[2] Part of the overall project was
the "Evolution" campaign.

Campaign

In 2004, Dove and Ogilvy & Mather organized a photography exhibit titled "Beyond Compare:
Women Photographers on Real Beauty." The show featured work from 67 female
photographers and lead to the Real Beauty campaign.[3] The Dove Real Beauty campaign was
conceived in 2004 during a 3-year creative strategic research effort, conducted in partnership
with three universities, led by Joah Santos.[4] The creative was conceived by Ogilvy & Mather
Düsseldorf and London.[5][6]

The research created a new consumer-centric vs product-centric advertising strategy, which

Joah Santos named (iconic Point Of View) P.O.V. - Purpose | Objective | Vision.[7] The strategy
led to all top 5 Campaigns of the Century, as rated by Advertising Age and increased sales
from $2B to $4B in 3 years.[6] The strategy discarded the brand essence ladder typically used
by Unilever and called for a POV strategy "To make women feel comfortable in the skin they
are in, to create a world where beauty is a source of confidence and not anxiety." All
campaigns for Dove Real Beauty need then to follow the POV set forth, each with their own
insight. The initial campaign insight/tension was an indication that only 2% of women
consider themselves beautiful.[5] It was created by Ogilvy & Mather Düsseldorf and London.[5]

The first stage of the campaign centered on a series of billboard advertisements, initially put
up in Germany and United Kingdom, and later worldwide. The spots showcased photographs
of regular women (in place of professional models), taken by noted portrait photographer
Rankin.[8] The ads invited passers-by to vote on whether a particular model was, for example,
"Fat or Fab" or "Wrinkled or Wonderful", with the results of the votes dynamically updated and
displayed on the billboard itself.[9] Accompanying the billboard advertisements was the
publication of the "Dove Report", a corporate study which Unilever intended to "[create] a new
definition of beauty [which] will free women from self-doubt and encourage them to embrace
their real beauty."[10]

The series received significant media coverage from talk shows, women's magazines, and
mainstream news broadcasts and publications,[11] generating media exposure which Unilever
has estimated to be worth more than 30 times the paid-for media space.[12] Following this
success, the campaign expanded into other media, with a series of television spots (Flip Your
Wigs and the Pro-Age series, among others) and print advertisements ("Tested on Real
Curves"), culminating in the 2006 Little Girls global campaign, which featured regional
versions of the same advertisement in both print and screen,[13] for which Unilever purchased
a 30-second spot in the commercial break during Super Bowl XL at an estimated cost of
US$2.5M.[14]

In 2006, Ogilvy & Mather were seeking to extend the campaign further, by creating one or
more viral videos to host on the Campaign for Real Beauty website. The first of these,
Daughters, was an interview-style piece intended to show how mothers and daughters related
to issues surrounding the modern perception of beauty and the beauty industry. The film,
Daughters, touches upon the self-esteem issues found in many young girls today. Dove's Self-
Esteem Fund supports their campaign by using statistics that demonstrate how young
women and girls are more apt to have distorted views of beauty.[15] It was during the
production of Daughters that a series of short films entitled "Beauty Crackdown" was pitched
to Unilever as an "activation idea."[16][17] The concept was one that art director Tim Piper, who
proposed to create Evolution with the budget left over from Daughters (C$135,000[18]),
pushed. It was originally intended to get people to the Campaign for Real Beauty website to
see Daughters, and to participate in the workshops featured on the site.[17] After Evolution,
Ogilvy produced Onslaught and Amy. Onslaught is an emotional video about the harsh reality
of young girls and the influence that the beauty industry can have on them.[1]

In April 2013, a video titled Dove Real Beauty Sketches was released as part of the campaign,
created by Hugo Veiga. It went viral attracting strong reactions from the public and media.[5]
In the video, several women describe themselves to a forensic sketch artist who cannot see
his subjects. The same women are then described by strangers whom they met the previous
day. The sketches are compared, with the stranger's image invariably being both more
flattering and more accurate.[19] The differences create strong reactions when shown to the
women.[5]

In October 2013, Free Being Me, a collaboration between Dove and the World Association of
Girl Guides and Girl Scouts was launched, with the aim of increasing "self-esteem and body
confidence" in girls.[20]

In 2017, Dove and Ogilvy London created limited-edition versions of body wash bottles meant
to look like different body shapes and sizes. Dove produced 6,800 bottles of the six different
designs and sent them to 15 different countries.[21]

Reaction

Individual ads caused different reactions, some positive and some negative. Evolution won
two Cannes Lions Grand Prix awards.[2] Writing for The Daily Telegraph, Katy Young called
Real Beauty Sketches "[Dove's] most thought provoking film yet ... Moving, eye opening and in
some ways saddening, this is one campaign that will make you think, and hopefully, feel more
beautiful."[22]

The campaign has been criticized on the grounds that Unilever also produces Fair and Lovely,
a skin-lightening product marketed at dark-skinned women in several countries.[23] It was
also widely noted that Unilever brand Lynx's advertising campaign would seemingly
contradict the sentiment of the Campaign for Real Beauty.[24] Moreover, Unilever owns Axe
hygiene products, which are marketed to men using overtly sexualized women, and Slim Fast
diet bars.[25][26] Writing for Forbes, Will Burns called such criticism "totally irrelevant".[26] He
explained: "No one thinks of Dove as a Unilever brand, for starters (nor should Dove) ... But
more to the point, does Dove’s idea mean teen boys don’t still want to smell good for the
ladies? Or that people who are overweight don’t want to lose a few pounds? These are
different brands solving problems for completely different audiences."[26] The criticism has
also been justified from others that state their concerns that the images that Dove portrays in
their ads are supposed to be unedited and "real"; however, there have been comments made
stating they have been photoshopped to smooth the appearance of the women's skin, hide
wrinkles and blemishes, fix stray hairs, etc. Photo retoucher Pascal Dangin, who works for
Box Studios in New York, told The New Yorker he made edits to the photos, “Do you know how
much retouching was on that?” he asked. “But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep
everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”[27] The women
who are targeted by these ads have mixed reviews as well. Some women were turned off that
Dove was in essence telling them they knew the insecurities they felt and what all women
felt. Social networking sites such as Facebook became an outlet for women to express their
praise and criticism.[28]

The campaign has been criticized positively and negatively by consumers, critiques, and
other companies because of the way Dove has chosen to portray their messages for their
audience. Writing for The New York Times, Tanzina Vega produced the article “ Ad About
Women’s Self-Image Creates a Sensation”. In this piece it portrayed how different people
viewed the Dove Real Beauty Campaign in different ways. First, was “Brenda Fiala, a senior
vice president for strategy at Blast Radius, a digital advertising agency. Fiala stated that Dove
was trying to create a sense of trust with the consumer by tapping into deep-seated
emotions that many women feel about themselves and their appearance”.[29] What she also
believed for The Dove Real Beauty Campaign was that the campaign “hits on a real human
truth for women,”[29] and that,“Many women undervalue themselves and also the way they
look".[29] On the other hand in this same ad it states that some people criticized the Ad’s for
the campaign believing they were contradicting with their true message. In the article by
Vega; Jazz Brice, 24 a viewer of the campaign, explains during an interview how she took the
messages from the Dove Real Beauty Campaign “I think it makes people much more
susceptible to absorbing the subconscious messages, and that at the heart of it all is that
beauty is still what defines women. It is a little hypocritical".[29] The campaign has had an
impact worldwide in both positive and negative ways with the help of Dove’s social media
outlets such as; Facebook and Twitter. The Dove Campaign was one of the first campaigns to
be considered as going "viral" in the sense that to be viral was new and generally unknown at
the time of the beginning of the campaign (2004).[30] Some viewers received the message as
a positive impact to the way women were viewed while other viewed it as the opposite.

With the positive and negative feedback received from the viewers and consumers of the
campaign the Dove Company did not just want to “talk”[30] to media about the problem they
wanted to “act” [30] on the issues and embrace the advantages of the campaign for the future.
In the article, “Dove’ Real Beauty Campaign Turns 10: How a Brand Tried To Change The
Conversation About Female Beauty”, written by Nina Bahadur from the HuffPost interviewed a
spokesperson for the Dove Company about the types of feed back they have got from the
Dove Real Beauty Campaign and how it has impacted the company. Sharon MacLeod, vice
president of Unilever North America Personal Care, told HuffPost"[We were thinking], we have
to walk the talk” she also stated “We can't just be getting people stirred up; awareness and
conversation isn't enough. We actually have to do something to change what's happening.”[30]
Since the start of the campaign, Dove has started funds for women and girls to promote their
message along with more advertisings in attempt to bring more awareness to women of
different ages and cultural background. The company of Dove believes they still have a
chance to bring a greater impact on society and the generations to come when it comes to
the impact of societies views of beauty and the impact it has on women and young girls.[30]
As stated in the interview with MacLeod "We're going to try to change a generation," MacLeod
tells HuffPost”You have to wait until they grow up to see what happens.”[30] Some critiques
on the other hand believe that the campaign focuses to greatly on the physical aspect of
beauty instead of other areas that should have more focus. From The Cut, Ann Friedman
states the following about the Dove Real Beauty Campaign: “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 wit and ethical sensibility, not just our faces and bodies.”[31]
Critics and defenders of the Dove Real Beauty Campaign have both pointed out on occasion
that because just cause Dove is trying to redefine what society and women believe as beauty
does not essentially mean that women and younger girls will feel different about themselves,
this is also stated by Ann Friedman when she suggests to the HuffPost as evidence that
Dove's message about beauty is important and necessary. An estimated 80 percent of
American women feel dissatisfied with their bodies, and 81 percent of 10-year-old girls are
afraid of becoming "fat." Can a series of ad campaigns really change institutionalized body
hatred?[30]

References

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"Performing Beauty: Dove's "Real Beauty" Beauty' Campaign Turns 10: How A Brand
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s/media/dove-ad-on-womens-self-image-crea
tes-an-online-sensation.html?_r=0) . The
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30. Bahadur, Nina (2014-01-21). "Dove 'Real
Beauty' Campaign Turns 10: How A Brand
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Further reading

Etcoff, Nancy; Orbach, Susie; Scott, Jennifer; D’Agostino, Heidi (September 2004). "The
Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report" (http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/contentartic
les/52%20Beauty/dove_white_paper_final.pdf) (PDF). Unilever.

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