Dove Campaing For Real Beauty

Not everything in the cosmetics industry however is out to manipulate us. Dove has launched a campaign to show what ‘Real Beauty’ is. Dove strives to publicize and celebrate the natural physical variation embodied by all women and inspire them to have the confidence to be comfortable with themselves to which part of the overall project was the “Evolution” campaign. The campaign was launched in 2004 and one of the billboards in the series asked viewers to phone up 1-888-342-DOVE to vote on whether they thought the woman on the billboard was “fat” or “fab” and the votes were posted real time on the board. Whilst at the beginning of the voting the Marketers where overjoyed that “fab” was leading the vote by 51% to 49%, eventually the percentage of “fat” votes overtook “fab”, much to the marketers horror of their failure to reach their aims and intentions of changing the public’s perception of beauty. Like I have, Dove had seen the consequences that manipulating the public into thinking that airbrushed photos where natural and in effect achievable therefore Dove campaigned to keep women aware of being proud of what nature has given you. What I like about their advertisement billboards is the layout that the Graphic Designer has put them through, as you can see the models in the adverts are not photoshopped, going completely against modern day advertisement of making everything look ‘perfect’, by dove leaving the models to be left how they are indicates that they are already perfect just the way they are and highlighting the fact that every physical variation that women embody is beautiful in their own unique way. The images are always displayed on a white background which in my opinion not only emphasizes the features of each individual model but it also gives it a clean, natural and fresh look, unlike the cosmetics industry itself where surgery and defacing the natural body and the harsh chemicals placed in the products give the industry a ‘dirty’ feel. Most of the billboards have “Does beauty mean looking like everyone else?”, what I find brilliant about this is the fact that it highlights what the beauty industry has become, the beauty industry have almost manufactured their opinion on what is beautiful and photoshop models to the extreme to create this manufactured image of beauty by making the models thinner, taller, bigger eyes, smaller nose, more angular face, longer neck, bigger hair, bigger boobs, longer legs (and the list goes on)to the point where the model looks nothing like the outcome but identical to every other piece of advertisement available, when what is actually beautiful id the fact that every woman is highly unique yet this is not celebrated. My most favourite feature of the Dove campaign is the fact they add answer box’s to their billboards on whether a woman is ‘freckled?’ or ‘flawless?’ etc. and what I find brilliant about this marketing technique is that it demands an answer from its viewers, some marketing techniques are ‘good’ in a sense that it will make its viewers wonder or question what the advertisement is portraying however with the technique they have used it is highly difficult for the viewer to not have their opinion pop in their head whether they share it or not and demands them to answer what they truly feel and in result get them to question themselves why do they have that opinion.
Later on as part of the campaign in 2006, Dove started the Dove Self-Esteem Fund which was another attempt  to change the Western concept of beauty from ultra-thin models with "perfect" features to making every girl (and woman) feel positive about her looks. The Marketers were determined to not make the same mistake twice therefore promote the Fund, Dove ordered a series of highly-successful online-based short films promoting the self-esteem concept, which to date includes Daughters, Evolution and Onslaught (see below).