Another “oldie but goodie” commercial, but one that fits perfectly in a site called AdVirtues.
The first of its kind, this ad demonstrates how the beauty industry deceives its consumers. Girls being raised with such unrealistic perceptions of beauty can develop very negative self-images. It was high time someone SHOWED the truth!
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Name: Lisa
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Bio: I'm a senior at Southern Methodist University, majoring in psychology and advertising. Not the typical university student, I'm the mother of two faaaaabulous children who are incredibly active and keep me running all the time. When I grow up (assuming that actually happens one day), I aspire to be an account planner at an ad agency that consistently produces virtuous advertising.
5 Comments
March 6th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
I love this ad. I remember being in middle and high school and looking at women in magazines and thinking that I could never be as pretty as the women in the pictures and I still do! I just assumed that is how they looked naturally; flawless. I have learned as I got older that those photos are touched up a lot. Not that the models and actresses in the magazines are not pretty but the way they touch them up to hide every small, tiny mark or dot on their face. This was such a clever ad from dove and is the perfect message for their “campaign for real beauty”. I really like all of the ads that dove has put out and I especially appreciate how they were using women of all sizes to advertise their products. This was something else that had never really been done. I think it’s really great on Dove’s part to show real women and to shed light on this issue.
March 6th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Wow. Such a powerful commercial. That’s so true about our culture these days. It’s also makes me think of the benefis of technology, but also the fine line between natural creativity and created beauty. As I watched this commercial, I thought of the countless other products and media this type of ad could be applied to. We have begun to accept “altered reality” as normal (if I’m being slightly dramatic.) Think of Photoshop-altered photography, food artists hired to make food look much more appealing, and over-produced music. Just because technology has developed to make our lives easier and slightly better, is it worth using? Where do we draw the line of what’s beneficial and when we’ve gone too far? In this Dove ad, yes, she looks better with makeup and digitally altered, but she was beautiful to begin with. But we also now have learned to expect that in the media that surrounds us; we understand that not every woman is as beautiful as she appears in a magazine. But it’s almost comforting knowing that every woman is not perfect. Or is it?
March 7th, 2009 at 12:00 am
These ads are so powerful. It’s such a shock to see the difference between what typical “hollywood beauty” and REAL beauty look like. I wish more companies would follow Dove’s initiative! Do you think this is truly making a difference or do you think some people consider it mockery?
March 7th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
I think this ad will definitely go down in our industry’s history as powerful and groundbreaking work. Although I wish more advertisers took this initiative, Dove also really started a trend by advertising with a moral standpoint. Before this campaign launched some might have predicted that this campaign could have harmed their business as they were advertising against their industry. I really think, however, that this ad has been good not only in shedding light on the body image issues young girls face but also for brand awareness for Dove. A win-win for everyone!
March 19th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Wow, that was a really different commercial. I actually was a bit disappointed with Dove for awhile but this really changed my mind on them. When they first came out with their “Real Beauty” campaign all the women looked more normal but they were all of a sudden incredibly tan or very proportional or even skinnier than the average person even if they weren’t model skinny so to see them come out with something that completely refutes any editing is interesting. I think they just have to be careful at this point what they do with their editing in the future because if they do even the slightest bit too much they could come off as hypocritical and the whole ordeal could backfire but for the moment I say congrats on really promoting true beauty. It was a great commercial.