Dove : Real Beauty Sketches
Beauty is everywhere and in everyone. However , we took advantage of an non-stop eternal mass tendency and concern in order to display how the sentence gloriously prevails . Such tendencies and concerns is the fact that everyone around us is meticulously taking care of their looks and do have a steoreotypical lookout about it . Self satisfaction is never achieved , instead of it , flaws and “imperfections” emerge and take control of us . As a result , many people have a distorted opinion about their look . But can a single product campaign have a substantial impact on all of the above ?
Dove (started from UK ) is a personal care brand owned by Unilever and it was introduced back in 1955 . Its products are manufactured in various countries , Canada , Indonesia , Israel , South Africa , Germany etc. . Dove’s products are high saled in most countries that are manifactured and they don’t have a specific target group as it is offered for women , men and babies .
Dove’s ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ campaign was a noteworthy example of how we see ourselves and how others see us . The advertisent starts with two women expressing what would they change on themselves and why and pointing out some flaws of them . Subsequently , an artist is assigned to draw women’s faces the way they describe themselves through asking them questions about characteristics of theirs , hair , lips , nose etc. . In the next “stage” , the artist starts a new painting but this time , he’s guided by people who describe from their own point of view , the way they look the women he painted before .
It comes as a surprise to everybody what happens in the end . The drawed women , walk throught the apartment , which actually had been re-designed as a sort of their-own-portrait-art-exhibition , in order to find their double portraits . They were so touched when they realised the huge gap between their view and the others’ , some bursted into tears too. The paintings described by others were way more beautiful than the ones women had described in the first time .
All in all , the advertisement conveys a message of self-esteem and self-confidence . It says love yourself , don’t be harsh and judgemental with him . Why ? Because it is critical for your own happiness , for every aspect of your life , it’s not healthy to live while degrading yourself . It advises people to stop analysing and try to fix the things they don’t like on themselves and start appreciate the ones they like , everyone is beautiful in a different way ,their own , special way .
However , Dove’s advertisent was a bit controversial . Some people claimed it was hypocritical for a cosmetics company to praise natural beauty , even with its imperfections , flaws etc . while they’re promoting products to improve your looks and “fix” yourself . Additionally , Avi Dan of Forbes said the video presents “an extraordinary, powerful image”, but added “ironically it implies, if not actually stated, that beauty is still what defines women The video pretends to debunk the notion that how you look always seems to be more important than who you are. But I feel like it’s still focusing too much on appearance.” Additional, Dan was bothered that all of the women in the video are young and thin, and most are white. Last but not least , writing for Bloomberg , Virginia Postrel noted that the “experiment” was not scientifically valid — the participants were not randomly selected, the sketch artist deviated from normal procedure (he didn’t show the women the sketches and ask them to confirm they were accurate at the time of the drawings), and the video editors chose only seven out of about 20 women used. She quoted forensic sketch artist Stephen Mancusi, who said, “it’s a tainted image, there’s no question about it.” In the blogosphre , the video drew harsher criticism prompting Adweek to write an article entitled “5 Reasons Why Some Critics Are Hating on Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches Video”.
MH ( Marketing Holics ) : Martha Skyrianou Zefi Zervou Xenia kissa Stavi diakoumakou
