Kudos to Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty
It hit me the other day when Valerie Bertinelli reappeared on The View after, seemingly, decades. Something she said (and later repeated on later interviews) struck me as an admission that just about every woman my age has confided in a group of girlfriends:
“But, looking back and seeing all the things that I went through — I look at pictures of me back then and think, my gosh, she’s such a cute little girl!”
Don’t you wish that you could go back and hug the uncertain little girl that you once were? OK, or maybe shake her and say, “You’re adorable, so chin up!” But then that would have sounded like your mom.
I think that most of us feel that way now that we’re faced with a few gray hairs and laugh lines. And I’ll bet that many of us same women will look back at 70 and remember how, at 40, we considered ourselves to have already peaked. Maybe no spring chicken anymore, but…dried up? Nahhhhh…
So I know that I’m a little late in jumping on the bandwagon, but KUDOS to Dove (and Ogilvy & Mather and Edelman Public Relations Worldwide) for picking up on an ad campaign and continuing it! Though it got some negative response — with a number of males finding it offensive — I think that it’s just part of extinguishing the media brainwashing. It’s not that we need a desensitization so much as a REsensitization to what is attractive. The more realistic images that we are presented with, the more that people relearn the fact that beauty has distinctive features and individual differences, and the less superficial a society we will become. Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” began back in 2004, but it deserves applause from us Everywomen. There IS such a thing as realistic beauty, and it’s not boxed in…nor does it come from a box. And we’re all born with some form of it.
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat4.asp?id=6909
They previously went after ageism, and then illustrated how media have narrowed our perception of beauty, and their latest is aimed at little girls to just love who they are. Helping girls to keep their confidence…and women to reclaim it — now THAT’S a noble effort. And maybe they’re right — in this age of generic, narrow-minded, airbrushed beauty, “Normal is The New Beautiful.”
Young girls should not have have their confidence undermined by a narrow-minded ideal of beauty, which is spread primarily through commercialism. And while she may never believe that her freckles are really angel kisses, or appreciate her fuller (not fat) body as just part of what makes her who she is, this campaign is certainly a start. And maybe if some of us grown women would quit with the Botox and the hair bleaching, then maybe girls would get the message. But, honestly, I don’t think that our generation has even gotten comfortable in our own skin yet.
Cited: http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/?q=valerie-bertinelli-and-rach
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dove_Campaign_for_Real_Beauty
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Dove “real beauty” campaign is a classical case of insight-driven ad that explored how a brand can address a contradiction in order to establish meaning and trigger affinity.
I have always believed that a brand is a product which has earned a place in consumers’ lives by “massaging” consumers’ ego or sense of self until a mental relationship is built.
Douglas Holt captured it better in “How brands become icon” where he advocated that brands must deliver beliefs that the consumers can use to manage the exigencies of a world that increasingly threatens their identities. Brands must become a cultural activist and a social authority
“Exploiting” the research fact that ONLY 2% of women worldwide considered themselves beautiful is a great way to become the champion of the remaining 98% using a compelling philosophy that “Real beauty come from within
Great work of all times