Dove - Evolution Viral

Viral ad for the Dove brand highlighting it's 'Campaign for Real Beauty' .

Interesting concept to promote the campaign and communicate a unique brand positioning for Dove. Although ironically it is effectively exploiting it's own industry, it clearly communicates the fact that the beauty industry and media present a very false image to us, the consumer - it's a clever eye-opener into what really happens 'behind the scenes' before you see the stereotypically beautiful, flawless face plastered on a billboard. It is extremely relevant to the current debates surrounding the effect of the media and what it presents as 'beautiful' on the younger generations of today and is trying to communicate the aim of it's campaign - to get girls and women to appreciate themselves for who they are and not to aspire to these images.

However, whilst exploiting the methods of the industry, it struck me the ad in a way also conforms to this stereotypical idea of beauty by acknowlodging the woman at the beginning as not 'beautiful'. Some of the brand's other ad's presenting normal girls and women could perhaps be argued to be more in line with the message the campaign is trying to communicate, none the less, this is still an effective attempt to deal with the issue surrounding the power the media's presentation of the ideal has on people. The repositioning of the Dove brand away from the rest of the beauty industry is a commendable attempt to respond to the negative impact of the industry yet I am sceptical as to how far it will succeed to make any real impact as in the end, people buy the products because they aspire to 'improve' themselves in some way.