There are hundreds, even thousands, of consumer products that aim to enhance or improve the women's body. I think that the standards set for women by television, magazines, and celebrities is unattainable and usually unrealistic. The majority of companies market their beauty products with models, while Dove is taking a new approach. Dove offers a diverse line of products for men and women. They have body washes, beauty bars, lotions, hair care, and facial care products. Dove is taking a new marketing approach and developed the Dove Real Beauty Campaign. The campaigns main objective is to widen to definition of beauty. To begin this campaign, Dove conducted an international beauty survey. Dove then chose to feature six "real women" of different sizes and ethnicities to laugh their campaign in print advertisements. The picture below compares the advertisements of Dove "Real Beauty Campaign" against Victoria Secret "Love my Body Campaign".
I think that this encourages young and older women
to love their body and love themselves the way they are. Dove plays up the concept of self-esteem and tries to improve individual self-esteem. This refers to the attitude someone has about themselves in a positive manner (Solomon, White and Dahl 2013). There are two aspects of one's self. The first is the ideal self of how someone wants to be and the second is the actual self which is a more realistic perception. In order to help reach this ideal self, women purchase Dove or similar products to enhance their beauty. The marketing campaign focuses on a women's body image. Body image can be described as an individual’s evaluation of themselves. Dove performed a national survey of 3,200 people in 10 countries. The results found that only 2% of women would call themselves beautiful (Dove Inc. 2012). This lead to the second level of the campaign of the Dove Real Beauty Sketches. The video below shows a subject describing themselves in a more negative light, while a second photo is described by a stranger in a more positive light. It is worth the 3 minutes and gets to the core of how people view themselves.
Source:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk
Dove is trying to widen the definition of beauty by encouraging women to love themselves. Although I think it is refreshing to see this kind of campaign, Dove has also faced much controversy. Unilever is the parent company of Axe and Dove meaning that both brands are under the Unilever umbrella. Both marketing campaigns focused of different things. Axe is focused on attractive women to swoon over a man who wears their products. In many Axe commercials, attractive women are chasing handsome men after applying the products. Dove looks the other way and tries to empower women and help love themselves the way there are. These controversies have been published and Unilever responded with "Each brand talks to its consumers in a way that's relevant. The Dove campaign aims to give women more confidence, where that Axe campaign is a spoof, not to be taken seriously" (
What beauty products do you use? Do you think Dove and Axe can continue there separate marketing campaigns? Is Dove effectively changing the beauty and body image market?
References
Dove Inc. . 2012. Real Beauty Campaign . Accessed October 2014. http://www.dove.ca/en/default.aspx.
Keilla. 2012. Fashionably Informed: Hypocrisy in Beauty Marketing. August 1st . Accessed 2014. http://www.collegefashion.net/fashion-news/fashionably-informed-hypocrisy-in-beauty-marketing/.
Solomon, Michael, Katherine White, and Darren W. Dahl. 2013. Consumer Behaviour: Buying, Having, Being Sixth Edition. Canada : Pearson.
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