About dove's campaign for real beauty: Intent and execution
In the last ten or so years, there has been a sweep to change the way advertisers endorse their products and services. The most prevalent way of advertising without a doubt still features the extraordinarily thin, tall, beautiful model that appears not to have a care in the world, but it seems that change is on the way. The greatest change for the world of media advertisements has been the development of positive body image campaigns that have the goal to modify the way consumers look at their own bodies. Although there have been many minor positive body image campaigns that have had minimal impact on the population of those who view advertisements, there has been one major positive body image campaign to truly stand out. Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty began in 2004 and is still producing advertisements that promote “real bodies” with “real women” as their models.
It’s often difficult to see every effect Dove's campaign has had on the women they have been trying to influence. The immediate reaction to their commercials and print advertisements was that their revolutionary idea to use real, average sized women as models could change the world. This still holds true in some cases; Dove recognized that there were major flaws in advertising and then actually did something about it; they took a risk.
The question now lies in the execution of their positive body campaign. After the initial rush of excitement died down and more advertisements and commercials came out, there were unhappy individuals with many critiques. The words “sexist” and “racist” passed through the fingers of thousands of angry women and men who felt that Dove had failed to represent them and those close to them and flowed onto the Internet. Many concerns were drawn about Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty centered on the question, “What is real beauty and am I even a part of that definition?” People were and still are incredibly peeved that the “real models” are relatively thin and predominantly Caucasian women. Dove failed to represent a multitude of ethnicities in their new, “revolutionary” advertisements and paid the price for the poor execution of a great idea. The lack of much color in Dove's advertisements took away from the message the brand was promoting, damaged the company's reputation, and left many consumers feeling unnoticed and upset. In addition, many people were very displeased with the simple fact that Dove only represented women, failing to acknowledge to body image issues within the male gender whatsoever. Body image issues do not solely affect women in the way Dove made it appear. How can a potentially racist and sexist campaign transform standards of beauty or anything at all?
These ideas leave the average consumer with a slew of different emotions, Dove made and, to this second, is still making a great attempt to change the world of advertising. Unfortunately, upon their attempt, has left many “average” consumers upset, offended, and disappointed. This website will look at the differing opinions on Dove’s Real Beauty campaign and how these opinions affected popular opinion on the effectiveness of the campaign itself.
It’s often difficult to see every effect Dove's campaign has had on the women they have been trying to influence. The immediate reaction to their commercials and print advertisements was that their revolutionary idea to use real, average sized women as models could change the world. This still holds true in some cases; Dove recognized that there were major flaws in advertising and then actually did something about it; they took a risk.
The question now lies in the execution of their positive body campaign. After the initial rush of excitement died down and more advertisements and commercials came out, there were unhappy individuals with many critiques. The words “sexist” and “racist” passed through the fingers of thousands of angry women and men who felt that Dove had failed to represent them and those close to them and flowed onto the Internet. Many concerns were drawn about Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty centered on the question, “What is real beauty and am I even a part of that definition?” People were and still are incredibly peeved that the “real models” are relatively thin and predominantly Caucasian women. Dove failed to represent a multitude of ethnicities in their new, “revolutionary” advertisements and paid the price for the poor execution of a great idea. The lack of much color in Dove's advertisements took away from the message the brand was promoting, damaged the company's reputation, and left many consumers feeling unnoticed and upset. In addition, many people were very displeased with the simple fact that Dove only represented women, failing to acknowledge to body image issues within the male gender whatsoever. Body image issues do not solely affect women in the way Dove made it appear. How can a potentially racist and sexist campaign transform standards of beauty or anything at all?
These ideas leave the average consumer with a slew of different emotions, Dove made and, to this second, is still making a great attempt to change the world of advertising. Unfortunately, upon their attempt, has left many “average” consumers upset, offended, and disappointed. This website will look at the differing opinions on Dove’s Real Beauty campaign and how these opinions affected popular opinion on the effectiveness of the campaign itself.