A brand for social change? The myth of Dove’s ‘real beauty’
Beauty brand Dove is often celebrated for its body positive advertising. But in a post first published on The Conversation, Meredith Nash argues that coming from Unilever, the company behind weight loss and skin lightening products, the marketing cynicism shows through.
Why do women hate to have their picture taken? That’s the question Dove, the global beauty brand, asks in its latest advertisement. The video – see below – is part of Dove’s campaign for “real beauty”, a range of marketing activities that reflect Dove’s philosophy that “real” beauty for women is “inclusive, attainable and rooted in taking good care of one’s self”.
Since 2004, Dove’s advertisements for personal care products have been designed to arouse women’s emotions against dominant notions of beauty that are premised on thinness, whiteness and perfection. The ads regularly feature “real” women and girls of varying ages and body shapes.
Understandably, Dove’s campaign has been very popular with female consumers. Every time a new video ad is released my Facebook and Twitter feeds become filled with (mostly female) friends remarking on how wonderful it is to see a company with a conscience.
Body image insecurities
Women in the West often have deeply troubled relationships with their bodies, starting from a very early age. Women also tend to be more critical of their bodies than men.
A recent study revealed that body image is one of the top three concerns of Australian girls between the ages of 15 and 19. Of the 8,000 girls surveyed in the study, 43% said they were concerned about how they looked.
According to Eating Disorders Victoria, low self-esteem and poor body image increase the chances that a person will develop an eating disorder. Currently, 90% of Australian eating disorder sufferers are girls and women. Similar trends around poor body image are also seen in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Dove positions itself as a feminist role model. Andrew Teman
Feminist activists such as Jean Kilbourne have argued that the endless stream of media images and advertisements featuring ultra-thin, tall, and perfect looking models in popular culture has contributed to this culture of negative female body image.
Given these trends, Dove’s question about why women avoid cameras cleverly taps into women’s emotions of bodily self-hatred. The brand positions itself in a “feminist” role – as an advocate for women – committed to social change.
But before we heap more praise on Dove for sparking a world-wide movement of female body confidence, we need to cast a more critical eye on the notion of “real beauty” and Dove’s position as a brand manufactured by a multinational corporation.
What’s the problem?
In spite of its (very effective) emotive appeal to female consumers to challenge beauty norms, paradoxically, Dove’s “real beauty” advertisements capitalise on women embracing cultural beauty standards. Dove’s marketing strategy is premised on the same idea that advertisers have been selling women for decades – that what is most important about women is how they look.
The campaign is troubling because Dove asks women to accept the myth that there is such a thing as “real beauty” and that achieving it is important for women. However, women can only achieve self-acceptance and a positive body image as consumers of Dove products.
In this way, Dove places the responsibility for becoming a “real beauty” back on to girls and women. Rather than being a genuine advocate for social change (the goal of feminism broadly), Dove’s advertisements evince a post-feminist sensibility. Post-feminism refers to an “undoing” of second-wave feminist gains (women working in paid jobs, securing reproductive rights, participating in higher education, and so on).
Post-feminism is aligned closely with consumerism – women supposedly become “empowered” when they make purchases. It is tied to women’s individual gains – detached from the institutional change that has been central in feminist movements.
Dove does not seek to create awareness of the fact that body image and rising rates of eating disorders throughout the West are social issues that are intimately linked with the beauty industry.
In contrast, as long as women are convinced that “real beauty” is important, Dove is able to distance itself from its position as a producer of oppressive bodily ideals. Dove is owned and manufactured by Unilever, a multinational company. A post-feminist sensibility aligns with Unilever’s corporate interests – the company profits enormously from women participating in Dove’s branding strategy.
Ironically, Dove’s feel-good, body positive messages draw our attention away from Unilever’s other brands including Slim Fast (for weight loss) and Fair & Lovely (skin lightening cream).
So before you go and re-post the new Dove video on your Facebook page and share it with your friends, remember this: feminism is about social change and Unilever is not a genuine advocate for women. The Real Beauty campaign is nothing more than a cleverly disguised ploy to sell women more products that they don’t need.
Don’t buy into it.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. Meredith Nash is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Tasmania.
Read the original article.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Could not agree more! I find this campaign so condescending.
Beauty is an imaginary currency and Dove is selling it in a way that perpetuates another outdated idea – that women lack confidence. This is not actually the case (not any more than men lack confidence anyway)
http://www.psychologytoday.com.....elf-esteem
I cringe every time a friend or acquaintance posts a new Dove video proclaiming “this really moved me!”.
We need to stop placing importance on beauty in its current form.
Also if women hate getting their picture taken, then what’s with all the selfies?
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Hmm. That’s a far stretch to make claim.
So Porsche isn’t a genuine sports car brand solely because it is owned by VW, who also own budget family brand Skoda?
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People need to understand that Dove isn’t an agent for social change: it’s an FMCG brand with a very clever campaign designed to sell more product.
Dove is beauty basics: affordable soap, moisturiser, stuff like that. Real Beauty as a proposition is genius for positioning a basic beauty brand because it creates a halo effect without the silly promises of most cosmetics: promises that a basic brand like Dove couldn’t live up to anyway.
The only problem is if people actually expect an FMCG giant to give a shit about women’s self perception, etc. Of course they don’t, so don’t go looking.
Maybe more critical thinking needs to be taught in schools.
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@Context I would argue that the campaign is neither “clever” nor “genius”. It’s actually just obvious and outdated. If they want to do something really revolutionary they should just say, “screw beauty, here’s some stuff to keep your skin clean”
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@Context
“Maybe more critical thinking needs to be taught in schools.”
Couldn’t agree more.
If Dove are playing to an idea that is outdated, then it won’t ring true and people won’t respond well. And if that were the case, then Dove would have to switch up their strategy.
However, the idea of Dove as a bastion of female empowerment IS working for them.
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@Fil – I think it’s viable for a parent company to own multiple brands at different price points and luxury perception levels and maitain it’s integrity, however I think to carry two ethically opposing products- one up on it’s high horse and another capitalising off the problem the other claims to care about- then integrity is lost.
I’ve also found it to be an inaccurate depiction of real women- they choose very fortunately proportioned women for the larger sizes.
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Interesting take on it all, however I have to disagree with a number of the points raised.
Meredith makes it sound like anyone who content shares the ad is being brainwashed by marketers and doesn’t understand the feminist ideal.
I am in marketing and I shared the ad, multiple times, because it made me think and I believe in what it stands for and you may be surprised to hear that I haven’t purchased a single Unilever product since watching it.
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what would be really refreshing is for media to talk openly about the brands, including Dove that use chemicals in their products that are harmful to women and men for that matter, oh and the kids. The UN released a report on it this year, didn’t get much if a run here because the brands that use chemicals that are bad for us and the planet advertise.
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I’m afraid I couldn’t disagree with you more (and I don’t work for Unilever or any of its products and never have). The very premise of this campaign when it first started was to break the beauty industry’s singular focus on the ‘airbrushed’ concept of beauty. It was a schema-cracking idea and started off with an online campaign with a global debate with anyone who was interested in what real beauty was all about.
Dove has had many iterations and plays on this theme since then but the bottom line is that it started off with them saying no matter your age, look, weight, features, etc, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and goes beyond what you see.
Of course they want to sell more product. The fact is they were brave enough to break the mould of an industry which had been set on one path for decades.
Has it been effective? You bet. Sales in the US went up by 600% after the first few months of launch and 700% in Europe after six months. Dove should be applauded for taking a brave, thought leadership approach and for cracking existing schemas about beauty product marketing. They’ve changed the debate about what beauty really is – after all you wouldn’t be writing opinion pieces about them and I wouldn’t be responding if they hadn’t.
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I understand the author’s point of view but this campaign is at least a step in the right direction. A direction that Dove can claim that many other beauty product manufacturers cannot.
While the campaign may be perpetuating the underlying female stereotype, it’s promoting a confident, happy sense of self in all shapes and sizes and that’s a far cry from a lot of the beauty advertising we are exposed to every day.
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Cynical sales ploy? Shock. Horror. Probe.
Dove’s ad reinforces a universal truth. Most women hate having their photos taken.
Deserved a Cannes gong.
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Awesome, I love the hackneyed old “selling people stuff they don’t need” trope. You mean, unnecessary stuff like soap?
Don’t think I’ll go to any of the author’s lectures. Or at least, I won’t sit in the front row.
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Obviously the socially responsible messaging is restricted to the Dove department in Unilever as they use sex to sell plenty if other crap
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I have to admit I find Dove’s campaigns smug and irritatingly PC, although they may have been conceived out of a genuine desire to avoid the usual beauty cliches, who knows?
However, there is a much more pressing reason to avoid buying their products, or anything from Unilever, and that is the fact that they test on animals. Inexcusable and unnecessary!
http://www.peta.org/living/bea...../2693.aspx
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I’ve just watched Dove Real Beauty Sketches (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk) again and I really like it. It’s very touching. People are really too conscious about how they look than they should. They see flaws on their faces and their bodies that other people don’t even notice or care about.
It may be an outdated concept. But it’s still touching. And I think that’s all that matters.
It creates “a strong emotional connection” with the majority of women. Hence, these women develop a positive feeling towards Dove. Consequently, Dove becomes on the top of their mind over the other brands (given that they have no product or brand preference (for a particular quality or ingredients)).
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