Modern Campaigns
CAMPAIGN 6 of 6
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty Bigger the better
The Campaign for Real Beauty is something of a contradiction in terms – a worldwide marketing campaign with a social conscience. The idea was to celebrate real women of all shapes and sizes, as opposed to walking twigs masquerading as people. Much like the campaign of our own Battlefronter Rachel Phipps Who wants to be a size zero anyway?
Shoot from the hipThey hired an uber-cool photographer called Rankin, who’s pretty famous as photographers go – he co-founded the painfully hip Dazed & Confused magazine, which also has a social conscience, having produced special issues dealing with beauty and disability, and AIDS and apartheid in South Africa.
Esteem cleaningThe campaign was backed up with the Dove Self Esteem fund, set up with the ambitious aim of moving the Western perception of beauty away from girls that look like they’re made out of fleshy pipe cleaners. To promote the fund, they released a series of nifty short films, one of which won two Cannes Lions Grand Prix awards. Namely this one: campaignforrealbeauty.ca
Ulterior motivesAll very laudable, but were Dove’s aims really as squeaky clean as their soap? One writer in the Guardian thinks not: guardian.co.uk Are Dove trying to do good, or just good business? And if people benefit, does it matter what their true intentions are? We're living in a capitalist society, so why not embrace it - you can make money and a difference simultaneously.