VIDEO: Dove’s recent ad – ‘Beauty on your own terms – #MyBeautyMySay’
“Through the stories of the women profiled and our campaign, we want to give all women a platform to speak out against beauty limits” , Diane Laberge – Marketing Director, Unilever Canada
With controversial and groundbreaking ads such as ‘Real Beauty’ and 2007 Cannes Lions Grand Prix winner, ‘Evolution’, Dove‘s campaigns have always had a strong focus on presenting, understanding and embracing the beauty of women – regardless of race, age, shape and nationality.
This year Dove has stuck to the same route with Ogilvy‘s latest campaign #MyBeautyMySay. The Unilever brand has attempted again to redefine the way modern society, media and advertising perceive and portray the female body and beauty.
Providing a backbone for this new campaign, the Dove Global Beauty Confidence Report’s found that 75% of Canadian women feel that they receive more compliments for their looks than for their professional achievements. To tackle this gap in perception, Dove presents a series of stories about a diverse selection of women with different styles, interests, ages and social backgrounds.
Featuring a plus-size fashion blogger, a ‘mannish’ model, an unconventional boxer, an incredibly stylish older woman – the spot aims to help women regain their self-esteem and believe in the power of their given-beauty by reflecting the idea that beauty has no limits. The campaign succeeds in keeping an on-going conversation around the idea of femininity and the term of the beauty.
Other examples of how Dove has been focusing on breaking the stereotypical image of beauty and building a healthy relationship with your body include : ‘Choose Beautiful’ and ‘Real Women Redefine Beauty’ .
A few months back, another Unilever brand AXE, targeted the opposite gender’s self-image and self-esteem through 72andSunny‘s ‘Find Your Magic’ global campaign. Reflecting on modern masculinity, the ad chose a different approach to how AXE address men through presenting their physical imperfections as their genuine strengths.
Unilever announced earlier in June that Dove and all the brands under their umbrella will be adopting an #unstereotype approach – a global aspiration to break the gender norm in advertising through progressive campaigns that ‘understand’ better the modern ideas around gender.