"Real Beauty" or Real Marketing?

     For many years, women and young girls have dealt with self-esteem issues, especially in the last few decades.  Dove, the skin and beauty product company, has had an ongoing campaign entitled Campaign For Real Beauty, which they have been promoting since 2004.  According to Dove, the mission of the campaign has been "to make people feel more beautiful every day by challenging today's stereotypical view of beauty."  Since the campaign started, Dove has received an immense amount of press and recognition- more than they ever have before.  Therefore, I cannot help but wonder, are they promoting “Real Beauty” or Real Marketing?  Unfortunately, although Dove claims to want to promote real beauty, they are in fact simply trying to increase revenue.  The societal norms of women on billboards and in magazines are sized-zero, loaded with make-up and digitally altered to have them appear what society would define as beautiful.  The company, however, has gone against the societal norm and claimed that real beauty is defined as women who are sized-twelve and natural- all to gain the media’s attention.  Unfortunately, the sad truth of this fact is that Dove still promotes beauty as society has viewed it, still use the societal norm of beautiful women, used the Real Beauty campaign to gain revenue and increase the value of their company, and use digital enhancement to alter the looks of their “naturally beautiful women” in their advertisements.

     When society promotes beautiful hair, we are shown volumized, long, sleek and shiny.  This is the exact advertising technique of Dove, as well.  For example, during the Real Beauty campaign, the classic character of Betty Flintsone was used in a Dove hair advertisement promoting more volumized and beautiful hair.  The advertisement features the Betty Flintstone we naturally see- her already beautiful natural red hair in a bun.  However, Dove is exploiting that her hair is not beautiful enough, and that she needs their product to make her hair beautiful.  As society would see beautiful hair, it is not in a bun, but rather it is let down and is long, sleek, shiny and with great volume.  Next to the typical Betty we’ve always known is a "new" Betty featured with long, shiny hair, and this is exactly what Dove is promoting in this print advertisement.  At the bottom of the ad, it reads, “Talk about yabba dabba do,” stating that her hair was not beautiful enough to begin with.  The same concept applies to Dove’s hair advertisement featuring Marge Simpson.  The ad displays the classic Marge we typically see- with tall, curly and frizzy hair.  The expression on her face is concerned as she looks at her hair.  After she uses the anti-frizz cream product by Dove, Marge is shown happier and as having societal beauty- hair down, long, shiny, sleek, and frizz-free.  Therefore, just as with the Betty Flintstone ad, Dove is promoting that Marge Simpson needs their product in order for her to have what society would view as beautiful hair.  Consequently, as shown with the Betty Flintstone and Marge Simpson ads, although Dove wants to go against society and promote natural beauty, they are falling short of their word and actually being hypocritical with their advertisements.

     Not only is Dove falling into the trap of promoting societal beauty with the Betty Flintstone and Marge Simpson ads, but also in other advertisements, as well.  During their infamous Campaign for Real Beauty, Dove released a coupon for their Energy Glow Beauty Body Lotion featuring four different women in bras and underwear.  The tagline of the ad states, “Good for your skin. Great for your look.”  Here Dove is implying your body needs to be better and visually appealing to look at, which is not the idea they claim to promote.  As viewed in recent billboards and print ads, Dove has promoted for their campaign that the most beautiful of women are a size twelve and have flab.  However, once again, they are being hypocritical in their Energy Glow Beauty Body Lotion because here, all four women are in perfect shape.  One woman in particular, on the right of the advertisement, is actually what society would most likely view as the most beautiful woman in ad, and she is in tip-top shape displaying a wonderful-looking muscular structure on her abs.  You would expect to see her on the cover of Women’s Fitness- not on a Dove coupon.  I thought Dove wanted to promote natural, average-sized women.  This woman with her Ab Circle Pro abs is completely going against Dove’s original statement of “Real Beauty.”  Once again, Dove cannot stay away from society’s view of beautiful women, as they continue to use them in their advertisements.

     On top of developing useful products, every company must have a good marketing strategy or else people will not know their name, and their products will not sell.  Especially in an economic recession, companies need to think up more strategic ways of promoting their products, and Dove has done just this.  The basis behind their Campaign for Real Beauty is not to promote what they are claiming as real beauty, but to increase sales.  According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the average weight of the American woman above the age of twenty is just shy of one hundred sixty-five pounds.  Therefore, promoting women who are one hundred sixty-five pounds does wonders for their marketing plan.  If I were a two hundred pound woman, I would not be sucked in to the advertisements displaying a stick-figured mere one hundred and ten pound woman; I would want to see women just like me.  This was Dove’s plan all along.  Since the average size of women is growing, so do the women in their advertisements.  Ergo, the ads are more likely to appeal to more women, therefore increasing sales.  I will admit Dove was extremely clever in coming up with such a strategy.  After all, that’s what people are paid millions of dollars to do.  It was a well played out approach in the marketing scheme of things because after the Campaign for Real Beauty launched, Dove’s products flew off the shelves.  So when it comes down to it, Dove will only promote better self-esteem for women so long as their company does well and their marketing design continues to work as it has been for the past six years.

     In addition to still promoting society’s view of beautiful women in their advertisements, Dove has also digitally enhanced their own models in the Real Beauty campaign.  In a commercial Dove created entitled, “Evolution,” we see a woman who has acne, beauty marks and pale skin.  The commercial takes us on a journey through her day, as she is getting ready for a photo shoot.  The woman sits in a chair as she has multiple make-up artists cover her pimples, sunspots and blemishes.  They then continue to pile on all sorts of make-up onto her cheeks, forehead, nose, chin, and eyes- the whole nine yards.  She then has hair stylists curling and perfecting her hair.  At this point, the woman already looks like an entirely different person.  They continue on with the photo shoot, snapping multiple pictures of her.  Once she is finished, they load the photographs onto the computer and continue to alter her appearance furthermore.  They lengthen her neck, make her eyes fuller, move around her hair and much more.  The final product is the image they take and put onto a billboard promoting face foundation.  The tagline of the commercial states, “No wonder girl’s image of beauty is so distorted.”  Dove is expressing in this commercial that it’s no wonder women’s image of beauty is misconstrued; most companies take their advertisements and alter them in such a way that the model appears absolutely “perfect,” as if they looked this way naturally.  The point Dove was trying to get across with this commercial was that it is not “Real Beauty” when you have to digitally alter people in advertisements.  Oh wait- didn’t Dove then continue to digitally manipulate their own advertisements featured in the Campaign for Real Beauty?  According to the May 12, 2008 issue of The New Yorker, photos featured in the campaign- such as one of the originals displaying six different-sized “natural” women- were in fact unnatural, and the photos were digitally altered.  Pascal Dangin, a digital artist, is best known for his work for digitally touching up models in Vogue magazine and for the worldwide known company Dior.  Dangin then touched up the advertisement for Dove featuring the six women.  He stated, "Do you know how much retouching was done on that? But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone's skin and faces showing the milage but not looking unattractive."  Dove wanted the women to look natural, but at the same time not show any stretch marks or cellulite.  According to the Health Guide Organization, over ninety percent of women have cellulite, so why would Dove, the company promoting Real Beauty, cover up such flaws in their own advertisements?  This is because cellulite is simply unappealing, and as Dangin mentioned, Dove did not want the women to appear unattractive.  This is yet another marketing strategy used to promote their company and products.  Once again, Dove proves to be hypocritical in their reasoning behind the promotion of their Campaign for Real Beauty.

     Dove’s purpose of creating the Campaign for Real Beauty was not to promote women’s self-esteem and what true beauty should be, but rather to devise a unique marketing plan to promote their company and appeal to a larger (no pun intended) audience.  Although Dove’s mission was to explain that what society tells us true beauty is, is in fact fake, they still promote models and tactics supporting society’s view of beauty.  In addition, while exploiting companies using digital enhancement to distort the image of what true beauty should be, Dove continues to digitally manipulate their own advertisements to appeal to the viewer, as well.  Although Dove did a phenomenal job in their marking strategies to appeal to a more vast audience, they consistently fail to follow through with their mission to promote “Real Beauty” and damage the idealized societal view of what beauty truly means.