About Dove is a personal care Brand. Well known as #1 Dermatologist recommended brand in the US, Canada and France. And it is famous with its Iconic Beauty Bar that leaves the skin clean, soft and smooth. The Brand is owned and developed by Unilever in 1957 in US.
Unilever is a corporation that owns other Companies like AXE and LUX. The target audience of the company are both woman and man from newly born babies to elderly peoples in more than 80 countries around the world. The company provides the customers with wide range of products like Washing and bathing products, Antiperspirants and Hair care products. The company manufactures its product in 21 different countries that includes Turkey, United States of America and Germany. Dove believes that beauty is not defined by your color, shape or age, but it is about feeling yourself as the best version of you Unique and real. And it encourages people to be aware of their personal potential for beauty by engaging them with products that deliver superior care.Dove real Beauty CampaignIs one of the biggest conceptual ad campaigns of the decade. Because it tried to do something more than just selling soap.
It tried to change the societal notions about beauty. And due its significant impact on the society The Campaign have reserved several awards. It was launched on 2004 by Unilever. And it strongly aimed to redefine Beauty and widening the narrow definition of beauty that have been established on our mined , by conveying the image of the real woman and what is the real beauty all about and how it looks like.
By using only ordinary woman instead of models and without the help of computer modification. To make beauty a source of confidence, not anxiety. In a world where beauty is associated and limited on a very narrow range of people that so-called models that represents less than 1% of people. And consequently girls all around the world becoming more worried about their looks. Dove’s social mission is to inspire girls on a wider definition of beauty.
And to ensure that the next generation grows up with the correct understandings of beauty that will make them feel more confident and aware of their own beauties. The campaign included billboard advertisements, videos, workshops, sleepover events and even publication of a book.The starting point of the campaign was in 2004 with a photography exhibition called beyond compare, that was organized by Dove and Ogilvy & Mather where was included a work of 67 ordinary beautiful woman photographers.Later a new advertising strategy was established by Joah Santos that later was called ”mission strategy” that aims to make woman feel confident and comfortable in the skin they are in to start a world where beauty is a source of confidence and awareness.As the first phase of the campaign a group of billboard advertisements, originally was used in Germany and United Kingdom, and then around the world. The billboard contained photographs of ordinary woman instead of celebrities or models that was taken by regular portrait photographers. Than people were invited to vote on where if the particular model was fat or fab or wrinkled or wonderful, and the results of the vote was displayed on the billboard itself.
Together with the billboard ads, a study called ”Dove Report” was published, where Unilever aims to establish a new notion for beauty that will make woman get rid of low self-esteem and inspire them to reveal the real beauty of them.And as sign of the vital impact of This effort, it obtained a considerable Media coverage on talk shows, magazines and news broadcasts ,that led to a media exposure that was more than 30 times the paid for media space. And as the consequence of this achievement, the campaign started using some other medias like TV spots as (among others and pro age) and printed advertisements like tasted on real curves, and Little Girls global campaign which also have included local versions of the same advertisement, for which a 30-second commercial break was purchased during Super Bowl XL with an approximate cost of 2,5$ million.In 2006, the campaign was extended by a couple of short videos that was added to the website of the campaign. The first video was Daughters which was as an interview style where Daughters and Mothers discuss the issues related with the perception of beauty in our time, and its consequences on many young girls.
The video started by asking mothers and daughters spritely to talk about things they like about their bodies and what they don’t. than after the mothers have identified the problematic parts of their body, and then the young girls started to talk about their own problematic parts, surprisingly they found the same problems that have been identified earlier by their mothers. This study found that the way we talk about ourselves and our self-esteem affects directly our children and how they feel about themselves. And that self-esteem is passed from generation to generation. The campaign also received a significant support from Doves self-esteem Fund that offered statistics that shows how young girls are more likely to have misconceptions about beauty.The other video was called the Evolution of Beauty which was directed by Tim Piper, to promote the newly created self-esteem found.
The 75 second video was created with budget of 135,000 C$ that was left from daughters campaign. And it was launched in 2006,The video starts with ordinary pretty girl who was the Canadian TV producer Stephanie Betts enters and sites down in the studio. With two harsh lights switched on. and Then a makeup and hair artist starts to put the makeup and adjusting her hair for a while till she was transformed to a remarkably beautiful model. Than the cameras started taking photos with different poses. Than from tens of photos one photo is selected and moved to image editing software where a bunch of Photoshop adjustments are performed to improve her look even more by making her neck longer, enhancing her hair, enlarging the eyes and mouth, modifying her curves and lighting her skin. And then just after all these pressures have been done to the image and it became unrecognizable, they used the photo on a billboard advertisement.
This video shows us the surprising truth about the beauty that we see in the magazines and how much unreal it is. The ad have received a considerable number of awards like two Cannes Lions Grand Prix awards, due to its significant contribution to reveal the truth about the deceptive beauty that we used to see.The next video was launched in 2013 and called Dove Real Beauty Sketches that intended to prove the fact that we are more beautiful than we think we are.The idea of the campaign was inspired by marketing study that have found that only 4% of woman consider themselves as beautiful. So the aim of the campaign was to find a way to prove to the other 96% are also beautiful. And in order to obtain the best results Dove hired FBI-trained sketch artist whom was Gil Zamora due to his experience with more than 3000 criminal sketches. In the video that was directed by Johan X, a group of woman was asked to describe themselves to a sketch artist that couldn’t see them.
Than the same woman was described again but this time by strangers whom they met the day before. Than after the two sketches being compared. They have found a surprising difference.
The image that was described by a stranger was more accurate and beautiful.the video was released on April 14, and was uploaded in 25 different languages on YouTube and within a 5 days the videos had more than 15 million views and an article about the campaign was shared more than 500,00 times in 24 hours. According to Brenda Fiala from a digital advertising agency of Blast Radius, said that the reason behind the significant success of the campaign was that it tried to change the fact that many women undervalue themselves.The Impact of the campaignDid Dove Real Beauty Campaign changed the world? No.
Did the campaign had an impact? Yes. Said Nancy Vonk, from the creative team at Ogilvy.And the most important impact that the campaign did, was making so many women all around the world Feel better about themselves. And that is priceless. Said Mike Byrne, a partner of the founding.
Regardless to the relatively small budget of the campaign, it achieved its goals, and in a short period of time due to its brave and original idea.And as the vice president of Unilever Sharon MacLeod said ” the aim of the campaign was to change a generation. And we believe that we still have a chance to bring even a greater impact on the society and the young generation.And as the second goal of the campaign that was selling soap, The Company’s profits rose from $2.5 billion to $4 billion during the Campaign.Regardless to the huge positive impact the campaign brought to society, it also received some small criticism