Archie Phillips Advertising and Concepts Report.
Topic: Representation of Women in beauty Products
Brand: Dove
The representation of women in beauty products is surrounded by a stigma where women feel underrepresented by the brands selling to them through advertising. Many brands promote unrealistic beauty standards, as well as ‘selling sex’ which generates a large contribution to this contemporary issue. There was a time in the early 2000’s when stomach rolls were only seen in before pictures, a plus size body was once considered a size six by popular media such as Americas next top model. Tabloids and paparazzi slammed celebrities for their appearances regularly which had an already negative impact before the presence of social media which would eventually inflate the issue on an even larger scale. ‘Selling sex’ a term used by advertisers also generates a large problem in itself and generates sales in two aspects. The first aspect being the aim to catch the male eye, an example would be placing a woman who is socially accepted as attractive next to a product like a perfume that is intended for women. The idea is that a man will see this and go and buy the product for his partner and/or a love interest for a special occasion such as birthday or Valentine’s Day for example. The other aspect is that the attractive women will catch the eye of a woman who may feel insecure about herself and have low self-esteem and the idea it creates is that the woman in the advert is attractive because she is wearing the product which would then essentially persuade the woman to purchase the product because she has been influenced to believe that if she purchases the product she will be as attractive as the woman in the advertisement.
In a report conducted by Dove’s public relations agency, Edleman in the early 2000’s it was found that only two percent of women would describe themselves as beautiful while twenty-three percent describe themselves as average. The report also showed that out of ten majorly populated countries fifty-four percent of women in the UK felt discomfort in describing themselves as beautiful which showed to be the highest of them all with forty-nine percent of women in Argentina coming second to that followed by Italy at forty-five percent. This report and many others are what made Dove successful. The report boasts PhD holders from both Harvard and the London School of economics it was incredibly well put together. They now knew their target demographic inside and out, allowing them to elicit an emotional response by addressing women’s relationships with themselves, the term beautiful and their deepest insecurities. The report clearly led Dove into a new era of its marketing techniques which paved way for the real beauty campaign and the other campaigns and projects that followed from that.
Dove’s real beauty campaign and pledge began in 2004, it aimed to change the representation of women in beauty products. The campaign still runs today alongside different projects such as the self-esteem project and many advertisements since. The advertising campaign began with different billboards featuring unedited natural women with options like “fat or fit” to question the audience of how they see perceive these women. It later progressed into online campaigns setting up a digital portal called the self-esteem project which compiled the advertisements as well as blogs promoting natural beauty. This resulted in a slew of viral videos such as “evolution” a 75 second Timelapse of an ordinary woman transforming into a model using makeup, hair stylists, airbrushing and photo shop ending on the statement “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted before going on to promote their self-esteem workshops. This campaign won the top award in the film category at the Cannes lion festival and the top digital award in the viral category. The campaign proved to be a huge commercial success seeing a ten percent increase in profits in 2010 alone. their advertisements are easily accessible on their website, stating a commitment to “no digital distortion”. The advert was so successful due to its connection to an issue within in its target demographic. It has been shown repeatedly that an emotional response leads to brand loyalty more than other forms of advertising, using a psychological influence to its advantage. Using their research on women’s self-esteem they used the issue to stand out from the forms of media that many women have been impacted by in their youth. Women felt celebrated the ad did not attempt to “leverage fear or shame” instead it stepped away from the airbrushed images so prevalent in the early 2000’s. Real beauty is now a commonly used hashtag and women everywhere are embracing naturality but in the early 2000’s the airbrushed model was the norm and dove was a pioneer in the body positivity and natural beauty movements.
For Dove to take the next step in the evolution of the representation of women in beauty products, Dove should consider stepping up above their own success by calling out other beauty brands even more than they already do by pressuring these brands to follow Dove’s footsteps to further evolve the industry and the representation of women to become more socially conscious. Furthermore, Dove could improve on two other main factors. The first factor is to expand upon its diversity by being intersectional and representing individuals with disabilities. The last factor is to include more individuals from southeast Asia that make up thirteen-point five percent of the UK population alone. They are featured less often than other minority groups like east Asians and black people and yet they face more stringent beauty standards than most. They receive both criticisms from their White British peers about a need to remove their thicker body hair but also standards from their own countries to have fair skin for example. Colourism is a very prevalent issue left behind in many previously colonised southeast Asian countries with skin lightening products flooding the shelves but is seldom addressed and they could benefit from a brand like dove embracing their natural features too.
References:
Dr. Nancy Etcoff – Harvard University Dr. Susie Orbach – London School of Econom. (September 2004). “THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT BEAUTY: A GLOBAL REPORT”. [Online]. Dove, a Unilever Beauty Brand. Available at: https://www.clubofamsterdam.com/contentarticles/52%20Beauty/dove_white_paper_final.pdf [Accessed 24 January 2024].
Effie Worldwide Inc. (2019). Dove 2003 – 2019, Global, Oglivy Edleman. [Online]. Effie. Available at: https://www.effie.org/caselibrary [Accessed 24 January 2024].
Global Brands Publications Limited © 2024. (2024). The Success of Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign. [Online]. Global Brands. Available at: https://www.globalbrandsmagazine.com/the-success-of-doves-real-beauty-campaign/ [Accessed 24 January 2024].
IMPACT. (2023). The Enduring Power and Impact of Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ Campaign. [Online]. Strixus. Last Updated: 22 February 2023. Available at: https://strixus.com/entry/the-enduring-power-and-impact-of-doves-real-beauty-campaign-18095 [Accessed 24 January 2024].
Lorraine Griffin. (2023). Dove: A Spotless Approach to Digital Marketing. [Online]. Digital Marketing Institute. Last Updated: 4 December 2023. Available at: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/dove-a-spotless-approach-to-digital-marketing [Accessed 24 January 2024].
Mark Sweney. (2007). Dove ad wins Cannes film prize. [Online]. The Guardian. Last Updated: Mon 25 Jun 2007. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/jun/25/advertising [Accessed 24 January 2024].
Marketing Week. (2019). Mark Ritson on how Dove challenged beauty industry stereotypes. [Online]. Youtube. Last Updated: 24 June 2019. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GirRXvVUR28&t=91s [Accessed 24 January 2024].
Michelle Konstantinovsky. (2022). If You Survived the Early 2000s Without Body Issues, Congratulations. [Online]. GLAMOUR. Last Updated: 29 September 2022. Available at: https://www.glamour.com/story/if-you-survived-the-early-2000s-without-body-issues-congratulations [Accessed 24 January 2024].
Nina Bahadur. (2016). Dove ‘Real Beauty’ Campaign Turns 10: How A Brand Tried To Change The Conversation About Female Beauty. [Online]. HUFFPOST. Last Updated: 6 December 2016. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dove-real-beauty-campaign-turns-10_n_4575940 [Accessed 24 January 2024].
Tatheer Tariq. (2021). Colorism in South Asian Culture and the Beauty Industry. [Online]. Spheres of Influence. Last Updated: November 30, 2021. Available at: https://spheresofinfluence.ca/colorism-in-south-asian-culture-and-the-beauty-industry/ [Accessed 24 January 2024].
Tim Piper. (2006). dove evolution. [Online]. Youtube. Last Updated: 6 Oct 2006. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U [Accessed 24 January 2024].
Unilever. (2024). Real Beauty Dove campaigns. [Online]. Dove. Available at: https://www.dove.com/uk/stories/campaigns.html [Accessed 24 January 2024].