Is 'Real Beauty' the shape of things to come?
We don’t pretend you can buy happiness. But at Unilever we do everything possible to create brands that help people look good, feel good and get more out of life. That means providing products that support people’s individual lifestyles and helping you live your life the way you want.
The Dove brand makes a unique contribution to this goal. It offers women a different perspective on beauty and never promises the impossible. On the contrary, they’re all about making the most of the real you.
The beauty reality check
In the world of advertising, any imperfection simply gets airbrushed out of existence. Bombarded by these perfect images, it’s no wonder that most women end up feeling bad about what nature gave them. The Dove team spoke to a number of women while developing their new firming range and found that the vast majority wanted to see more realistic-looking models in adverts and the media.
Remember the campaign where ordinary women chatted away about how Dove products worked for them? Those were real women, giving real testimonials. Dove was saying: why bother with hype when you have great products that give real results?
Since then, Dove has gone from strength to strength. Our ad campaign for firming lotion, which featured gloriously curvy models, put a smile on countless women’s faces (and a lot of men’s, too!).
The Campaign For Real Beauty
Beauty comes in all shapes, sizes and ages - that's the point we're trying to get across in our latest campaign. You will have seen our latest adverts travelling to and from work in the underground or on billboards. They feature the beautiful Irene Sinclaire, the 96-year-old grandmother. What do you think, is she wrinkled or wonderful? It is those images that have sparked the recent debates about conventional ideas of beauty.
Much more than just advertising, those images are all part of the Dove ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’. Through the campaign we are organising a range of events and surveys that are challenging accepted definitions of female beauty.
Boosting self-esteem around the world
In a quest to find out the real truth about beauty, we talked to over 3000 women in ten countries around the world. With the help of Dr Nancy Etcoff from Harvard University and Dr Susie Orbach from London School of Economics, we found that women in the UK are least likely to feel comfortable with their physical appearance. An alarming 74% of 8-13 year-old girls said they wanted to change their appearance.
Through the Dove Self-Esteem Fund we make donations to organisations like the Eating Disorders Association (EDA) who are developing new ways to increase self-esteem. With our help the EDA has developed Body Talk, a workshop designed to help young girls (and boys) understand and deal with feelings about their physical appearance. It also teaches them about how “ideal” images of beauty are created.
Touching a nerve
We hope that seeing these ads and finding out about the Campaign for Real Beauty makes women everywhere feel good about themselves. In a world in which we are bombarded with unrealistic images of physical perfection, isn’t it time you joined the campaign?
