Media Ethics: Issues and Cases 8th Edition by Philip Patterson, Lee Wilkins

Exercise 16

In the Eye of the Beholder: Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty
BRANDI HERMAN-ROSE
University of Missouri-Columbia
In the summer of 2005, Dove, a division of Unilever Corporation, launched its campaign for real beauty in the U.K. This marketing campaign-initially to promote skincare products such as a firming lotion-has expanded to include public service ads and promotions that simply question what constitutes real beauty.
Dove's campaign has drawn extensive media attention because it features six very unconventional models. They range in dress size from 6 to 14 and have different body types. Some have tattoos. Others have larger thighs. Dove touts these models as "real women" with "real beauty."
To view a number of the ads that have run as part of this continuing campaign, go to the following Web sites: www.Dove.com or www.Campaignforrealbeauty.com
These ads feature six women in no-frills white bras and panties. All six are in their 20s. They are of different races, sizes and shapes. One has a large tattoo on her thigh. They vary in height. One is lily white, others have curly hair.
Women are pictured large on billboards and print ads that ask about each woman's characteristics. One 95-year-old woman is pictured with the two words "Wrinkled or wonderful?" Another larger-than-average woman is pictured smiling broadly at the camera with the words "Overweight or outstanding?" Each ad features women who are outside the conventional modeling stereotype. Each image also asks whether the model should be described with a positive or negative word or phrase.
In an advertisement featured on TV for Dove's hair care products, women are seen walking the streets with identical blonde coifs. At a given point, these women pull off their wigs to reveal curly-, straight-, blonde-, brown- and black-haired women. This ad ran in multiple countries and emphasized the beauty found in each woman's unique hair type.
Other companies have tried to showcase real women in their ads without boosting sales or receiving the same recognition as Dove's real beauty campaign. So, how did Dove come up with this campaign idea? Did Dove push for this creative direction or was the idea the work of Ogilvy and Mather, Dove's advertising agency?
Dove's campaign for "real beauty" was the result of an extensive research initiative that studied 3,200 women in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Britain and the United States. Of the women sampled, only 2 percent considered themselves "beautiful." Another 5 percent described themselves as "pretty" and only 9 percent described themselves as "attractive."
For the survey, Dove commissioned the services of StrategyOne and MORI International to ensure that the study met criteria and codes of conduct established by global research associations. In addition, Dove utilized leading independent thinkers and academic institutions for research design and data analysis. Finally, Dove ensured that the study itself contained no reference to the brand or its parent, Unilever, and participants remained unaware of their sponsorship of the study (Lagnado 2004).
Dove, a company whose entire success is tied up in the actions and beliefs of women, is highly invested in research about women's belief systems. In a report entitled "The Real Truth about Beauty," the researchers (Etcoff, Orbach, Scott and D'Agostino 2004) claim:
Women's interest in and preoccupation with beauty, is not some easily dismissed concern. This study shows conclusively that women now judge beauty as important and even crucial as they navigate today's world. In attempting to democratize and make accessible to all the idea of beauty, women are eager to see a redefinition and expansion of the ideals, along the lines they see it and away from the limiting, narrowed and restricted body shapes and sizes we see in moving images and in print.
The campaign for real beauty launched in the summer of 2005 in the U.K. to wide acclaim in the British press, and that same media attention spread throughout the United States and worldwide. This global campaign has received a mixture of praise and ridicule.
Alicia Clegg, a writer for www.brandchannel.com, wrote about the real beauty campaign after its launch in the U.K. "By showing a wider range of skin types and body shapes, Dove's advertising offers a democratized view of beauty to which all can aspire. The campaign also has an implied moral purpose, one that takes on the ethical issues of consumerism" (Clegg 2005).
Despite the positive comments that Dove received, still others felt that the methods of marketing used for this campaign were nothing more than a veiled attempt to convince women of their imperfections. "Some people think that the ads were just a ploy for Dove to make money by trying to boost a woman's confidence, while at the same time catering to her insecurities by selling her a firming cream" (Marchese 2005). Still others (Gogoi 2005) have suggested that the only reason that this campaign showcasing "real women" works well at this time is because of the prevalence of reality television within the past few years.
When held up against other campaigns for beauty products, Dove is doing something considerably different. Campaigns for brands like Olay and Jergens, two of Dove's main competitors, feature long-legged, very thin women in sexy poses, choices that Ogilvy, with Dove's direction, avoided.
Dove's campaign has received more positive reception in the U.K. Citizens of the United States responded well to the ads for hair products, but getting U.S. women to see overweight women as beautiful has been a more difficult task.
Since the population of the planet is aging, is what Dove is doing really just smart marketing? What role do you believe ethical thinking played in the campaign?