Onslaught Indeed, Anyone Else Tired of Dove's 'Real Beauty' Campaign?
| Tue Oct. 16, 2007 2:25 PM PDT
Dove has unveiled a new chapter in its ongoing effort to hoodwink the conscientious consumer in need of a new bar of soap. Its "Campaign for Real Beauty," like those of Benetton and The Body Shop before it, has been throwing up gorgeous billboards and television commercials featuring women of all shapes, sizes, and shades for years now. The message? Dove is different from other purveyors of beauty products; Dove cares for your skin as well as your well-being, as expressed by its honest portrayals of beauty in its various forms.
Dove's new marketing strategy is to web-release ads that directly critcize deceptive representations of beauty. This past summer, the viral ad Evolution won a Grand Prix prize at Cannes. The minute-long film featured a woman's face transformed through make-up and digital augmentation to an idealized face on a billboard wholly unlike the original. The spot concluded, "No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted." Its sequel—Onslaught—which hit the web at the beginning of October, opens with a close-up of a guileless young girl, blissfully unaware of the pressure to be "younger, taller, lighter, firmer, tighter, thinner, softer," followed by a fast-forward zoom through the debasing and all-too-prevalent beauty ads to which she will soon aspire. Through this campaign, Dove is taking a stand against such ads. Onslaught closes with this message: "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does."
Good advice, if only it wasn't coming from a company owned by Unilever, which also owns Slim-Fast and Axe deodorant, products that are pushed by those very ads that Dove is denouncing.
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Comments
I have no problem with TV commercials, as I almost never watch TV and tend to be lightning-quick on the mute button anyway.
Billboards have never been more than "background noise for the eyes" to me, and I scarcely notice them.
On the rare occasions I DO watch TV, if a soap or beauty product commercial came on between innings, that would signal the PERFECT time to go for a sandwich and, dare I say it? A BEER!!
Yeah, cause women in the midwest are just so bombarded with Aveda and expensive organic beauty care that make sense of them.
Because when one company within a conglomerate should just peddle the same fantasy crap all the other companies do.
Because unless its managed to reach the same level of extensive all stocks owned by employees, no sweatshop labor, and sustainable development then no progress is progress.
Because it didn't bring the fact that certain places tried to ban it to mass culture.
How about posting an article that highlights people that are doing what you proposed and using this as a fact within that to promote how they could expand their market. Or is progress only progress when made by the 'pure'?
All commercials/ad campaigns are meant to identify emotionally with people so you buy their products- this is common knowledge.
Knowing this, why complain about these socially sensitive campaigns? Is it better to have commmercials that point out the negative aspects of the media-defined standard of beauty, and how it effects us, or is it preferable to have more liposuctioned, anorexic, boob-jobbed models whose sole purpose is to make women feel bad so they will buy products? It is one or the other- advertising is not going away, and companies will always sell their products, even when they conflict with each other. It seems obvious that a positive message is better than the negative one- regardless of the reason it exists. As long as you watch TV, why not make it as positive as possible? NO matter what content a commercial has, someone will be unhappy!
For years women have complained that the beauty and cosmetics industries use unrealistic body images to make women feel unattractive.
They are right to complain!
But when a company decides to make an ad campaign that is sensitive to this issue, there are still complaints.
This IS progress, in the real world. I would rather my daughter see no ads, but if she does, I will take this one over most others.
Submitted by MarilynJean (not verified) on Wed Oct. 17, 2007 12:20 PM PDT.
Nope, not tired yet. Just you. All corporations suck. We get that. Don't bash Dove for being part of the corporate regime. Change has to start somewhere. I appreciate knowing Dove's affiliations, but I'm still not mad over their "provocative" campaign.
