Dove no longer sells soap. The company is so much more than a set of commodity products. Dove sells real beauty; natural beauty; non-superficial beauty. The Campaign for Real Beauty website features a one-minute film that shows the transformation of an average-looking woman into a strikingly gorgeous supermodel. Only by seeing this process can we truly comprehend the illusion that the media has portrayed of these fabricated dream girls. The beauty of this site is that it doesn't end with just awareness of the problem. It launches immediately into an actionable item for eight to 12-year-old girls to sign up for Dove's real beauty workshops. These workshops teach girls about the importance of identifying beauty within themselves in the pre-teen years before the peer pressure to be like the mythical supermodel drives them to anorexia or bulimia.
This site has generated major buzz for good reason. It is authentic, genuine, and true to the Dove brand. It is an extension of the type of values that Dove has demonstrated for the past several years as one of the first major brands to feature larger women in their ads. It challenges convention and educates. As a viral website, "Campaign for Real Beauty" employs all of the right strategies and tactics. It's easy to send the website to a friend, it has a compelling call-to-action, and it positions the educational resources on the site as the main focus-- a testament to Dove's humanitarian reasons for creating the campaign. It is clear what is important here, and that isn't just selling product. It's helping women and girls redefine beauty to change their life in a positive way.
The website is clearly targeted towards women and girls, but us men and boys are a big part of the equation. As for me, I think my wife is stunningly beautiful whether she is getting out of the tent on an early morning of a camping trip or dressed up in an evening gown for a swanky date. However, I must say that the superficial, heavily-altered, Photoshopped supermodel in the advertisement at the end of the Dove film is straight-up HOT! Men are a simple breed. My question to Dove is, what's next? How can you break through to men?
-- Ryan Buchanan, president, eROI
While I'm well aware of how much work goes into making models and celebrities look so fabulous in print and on the big and little screens, something about this Dove video is so eye-opening. I'm not at all surprised that I've seen it featured on so many of my favorite blogs. The message that no one wakes up in the morning looking bright-eyed, taught and fabulous resonates with woman especially, although I first heard about this video from my husband.
Dove's approach to embracing natural beauty and women of all shapes and sizes is refreshing, and this facet of the campaign is another great way to illustrate their commitment to keeping women's self-esteem in check. I've looked at a few women's magazines since I first saw this video, and instead of, "Wow! That celeb on the cover is amazingly beautiful!" I've taken a harder look at the covers to see if I can spot the air-brushing and how else they could have altered the original image.
Kudos to Dove for creating this video. I'm excited to see what they'll do next!
-- Nanette Marcus, editor, iMedia Connection