Media Flash: Dove's Real Beauty Campaign

            In recent years, the general public has gotten tired of looking at stick figure models. There are movements that have started to counteract the idea of the size 0 woman being the ideal of beauty. However, since women are largely restricted to options predetermined by corporations, the movement is determined by what companies choose to join. In the last decade, one company, Dove, has done a great deal to help give women confidence and to push against the norm. This company has even created a fund to help raise the self-esteem of young girls. While Dove’s ad campaigns have been helpful to increase the ideals of beauty, their work is not as beneficial as it initially seems. Dove is actually perpetuating many of the aspects of the beauty industry.

            Dove is a company that manufactures health and beauty products. They sell lotions, body washes, deodorants, soaps, etc. for men and women. In 2004, Dove launched The Campaign for Real Beauty; a campaign in response to a study that found 2% of women around the world would call themselves beautiful.¹ Dove has released videos and print ads in efforts to spread the word about their campaign. There are three notable video ads as a part of this campaign: Evolution, Onslaught, and Amy.  Each one of these videos tells a little bit about their campaign.

            Evolution is a video about the beauty industry’s efforts to change women’s appearances into something completely different in the pursuit of publication.² The video starts with a woman walking in the frame and sitting on a stool. A man can be heard shouting directions to some crew. The screen fades to black and then words appear on screen.“[a] Dove film”  followed later by “evolution.” As the woman comes back onto screen, lights begin to turn on and people start to surround her, doing her hair and make-up. As music swells the viewer, the artists transform an average-looking dirty-blonde woman into a creation filled with make-up and hairspray. The video is on time-lapse, so what likely took over an hour to complete takes mere seconds to watch. After the transformation, the woman models for a photographer, as noted by the flashing lights. A photo is selected and then placed into photo editing software. Her neck is elongated, her hair expanded, her eyes enlarged along with a myriad of other small details to alter the image. The camera starts to zoom out and the viewer can see that the image is now on billboard overlooking a busy street. Then “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted” appears on screen. The video ends with the Dove self-esteem fund logo. This video serves as a way to inform viewers about the Dove fund and to speak out against the rampant use cosmetics and technology in order to alter women to appear as something they are not. They took a woman and made her into something that she could never be, with features not physically possible, but in a packaged way that made her seem normal nonetheless.

            Onslaught is similar to Evolution in that it also targets the beauty industry and how they make an attempt to change women or tell them to change.³ Onslaught also starts with a black screen and then the “a Dove film” and “Onslaught” appear on screen. A young redheaded girl appears on screen. Cheery music starts in the background, but transitions to more of rock music with the words “here it comes” repeated five times each time heightening the anticipation of the viewer. The final repetition is joined with the little girl disappearing and images of ads with small women taking her place. The ads are shown for less than a second each, not enough time to actually see what they are advertising but enough time to notice the often scantily clad women. The body part in the clips vary between buttocks, legs, chests, lips, and every other imaginable body part. The video pauses at what can be assumed as a music video with two women in bathing suits gyrating. The video returns to clips with ads for things to alter appearance. Key words can now be made out and strung together they say, “You’ll look younger, smaller, lighter, firmer, tighter, thinner, softer.” As the barrage continues, the adds show a woman on a scale. Her body gets smaller then larger and then smaller again in alternating clips spread through ones for losing weight. Then montage of plastic surgery—everything from breast augmentations to rhinoplasties. The ad then flashes to a few young girls walking across the street. “[t]alk to your daughter before the beauty industry does” appears on screen right as the young redhead crosses the street looking at the audience. The ad finishes with the Dove fund logo. The name of the video is quiet telling about what Dove is trying to say. The little girl is meant to be a symbol of innocence and purity, she has not be affected by outside influences, yet. She soon will be noticing images everywhere, an onslaught in fact, that will be influencing her perception of the ideal body. Dove is urging parents, mothers specifically, to warn their daughters about how companies advertise and to have them get their confidence from internal sources rather than external ones.

            Amy again starts in a similar fashion to the other two videos.⁴ The video shows a young boy, roughly 12 in age riding his bike to a house. He sits outside saying, “Amy” repeatedly. He looks disappointed that she is not appearing. After it is clear that he has been waiting a while, “Amy can name 12 things wrong with her appearance.” Preceded by a pause, “He can’t name one” then flashes followed by “Sent to you by someone who thinks you’re beautiful” and the Dove fund logo. Amy is supposed to be a young girl who has been affected by the beauty industry. She is self-conscious and is likely seeing problems that others don’t actually see.

            These videos all raise awareness for the Dove campaign. They show that things are not always what they seem and young girls are affected by advertisements, often at young ages. To place these commercials in context of the campaign, the rest of the Campaign for Real Beauty should be examined. In her book, Enlightened Sexism, Susan Douglas writes that the year that Dove started the Campaign for Real Beauty, their sales rose 12.5% and 10% the year after, hardly something to ignore.⁵ Clearly women were responding to their ad campaign. Women flocked to the company that were putting real women in their ads.¹ But, by going and buying these products, women were, and still are, falling victim to consumerism. Dove’s campaign is giving women a means to overcome the stick figure expectation. But, they must purchase their products to do so. In order to break free of the pressure from some companies, they buy products from another. Assumed power and control is only given through consumerism.⁶  

            Another issue with the Dove campaign is the sexualization of women. The most well known ad for the company is a series of “real” women clad only in white underwear posing for a campera.¹ They are heralded as a change in times. We will not be looking at stick figures any longer. Ignored, is that they are being shown for sexual nature. In order to show that the women are comfortable in their own skin, they are showing nearly all of it. In most cases, ads targeted towards women do not have scantily clad women in them. Those are typically for men. Many of Dove’s products are for smoother or softer skin, which is easily shown with the half-naked women. White is generally associated with purity and cleanliness. By having white undergarments for the women to model, they are being given and underlying nature of cleanliness and purity. In this case, the purity can come across as sexual purity. Since it is an ad about women celebrating their bodies, of course it is not about sex. In fact, it is the opposite. Because of the nature of the ad, the marketers were able to be more sexual without off-putting their female consumers who would normally oppose such a move. The ads are telling women that they can be empowered by being sexual, i.e. by still being attractive in their underwear. The ads from Dove still fall victim to sexualization.

            A final issue with the Dove campaign may be in fact something out of their control. The company that owns Dove, Unilever, also owns Slim-Fast and Axe.^5,7 It seems contradictory for a company to be telling women that they should be comfortable with their own bodies, but also telling them that they should be slender with large breasts and should be fawning over men. This is a little bit like a child being in control with what their sibling is doing. In reality it is the parent who is in control over what both do. However, when things are related, we often associate them together. In this way, parts of the Dove campaign are actually negated by the other companies because of their close financial ties.

            In a world that is inundated with images that give women a narrow view of what the ideal body, the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a refreshing change. It opens up the conversation about how young women are influenced by the media and how the media can distort images to give unrealistic expectations. However, the Dove campaign also falls victims to some of the old tricks such as consumerism and sexualization as means to empower women.

1.      Unilever. http://www.dove.us/Social-Mission/campaign-for-real-beauty.aspx

2.      “Evolution Commercial (higher quality)” [n.d.], video clip, accessed April 6, 2012,YouTube,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U

3.      “Dove Onslaught HIGH DEFINITION” [n.d.], video clip, accessed April 6, 2012,YouTube,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epOg1nWJ4T8&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL84977B65C2B85CC9

4.      “Case Study: Dove Campaign for Real Beauty ‘Amy’” [n.d.], video clip, accessed April 6, 2012,YouTube,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkFPN1WYi3E

5.      Douglas, Susan. Enlightened Sexism: the seductive message that feminism's work is done. New York City: Times Books, 2010. p.229.

6.      Douglas, Susan. Enlightened Sexism: the seductive message that feminism's work is done. New York City: Times Books, 2010. p.8.

7.      Unilever. http://www.unilever.com/brands/