Launched in September 2004, Dove's Real Beauty campaign challenges traditional beauty standards and promotes self-acceptance, bucking the trend of previous campaigns in this space and targeting people of all ages, We featured images of real women of all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities.
This is based on the insight that only 2% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful, largely due to the idealized images of women we are bombarded with in advertising, media and popular culture. And remember, this was before the dawn of smartphones and social media, and they added even more pressure.
The essential philosophy behind this campaign continues to inform Dove's communications and marketing to this day, as evidenced by the Campaign of the Year-winning #TurnYourBack activation on March 25th. , which received a great response.th Commemorative PRWeek Award.
#TurnYourBack pushes back on the Bold Glamor-generated AI filter trend that took social media by storm last year. The filter airbrushed users to a single beauty standard and changed people's faces so much that some thought it should be banned due to its potential mental health effects. Within his 72 hours of the filter's launch, Dove partnered with her 68 influential creators and asked them to #TurnYourBack on the filter.
This is a classic extension of Dove's No Digital Distortion movement and Self-Esteem Project, which were themselves built on the concept of the Campaign for Real Beauty.
Today, we see women of all ages, shapes, sizes, and ethnicities on magazine covers and fashion show runways. This was not solely due to Dove's campaign, but it certainly contributed significantly to the revolution.
The campaign, conceived by Ogilvy & Mather and executed in partnership with Edelman, was named the best of the past 20 years by PRWeek 20.th This ultimately proved the value of acting with purpose when it comes to building a brand and generating profits for a company, and showed that the two are not mutually exclusive.
I remember attending the launch of the Campaign for Real Beauty in London in September 2004. Interestingly, his lead presenter was a man, Ogilvy's legendary creative strategist Rory Sutherland. That certainly wouldn't have been the case today.
But Sutherland's unique take on marketing and branding certainly suited the atmosphere of the evening, which brought together the great and good of British advertising for what was immediately clear to be an iconic production. celebrated.
Sutherland's philosophy is always to do things backwards. In other words, start with the consumer and leverage a bottom-up strategy to work towards the business case at the top of the funnel. And that was certainly the philosophy of the Campaign for Real Beauty. “We have proven that there is no trade-off between purpose and profit,” Dove Chief Marketing Officer Alessandro Manfredi said this week.
Kathryn Fernandez, Dove's senior director of purpose and engagement in North America, and the rest of the Dove team rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange earlier this week and said on LinkedIn: confidence and empowerment. ”
Dove also marked this milestone by recommitting to the philosophy behind Real Beauty and pledging to never use AI to represent real women in advertising.
The company has released a global beauty study that estimates that by 2025, up to 90% of what we see on screen will be the product of generative AI. Almost eight in 10 women (73%) feel pressure to be more beautiful than they were eight years ago. Additionally, nearly nine in 10 women and girls (85%) say they have been exposed to harmful beauty content online.
Therefore, the work is not finished yet. It will be exciting to see how the Dove team and other brand marketers get creative in the coming years to tackle important issues like this, sell more products, and continue to drive profits for the company. I'm looking forward to it.
