Over the last decade, versatile social media and the Internet, in general, have become extremely popular as the targets for advertisement and marketing campaigns since many users and potential customers tend to spend more time browsing the net than watching TV or reading magazines. In that way, today, the companies that pursue marketing success and attempt to attract new clients employ social media to communicate with their consumer segment and promote their brands and products.
In reality, the Internet is a field of endless opportunities for the creative advertisement campaigns because it facilitates the marketers connections with all types of consumers and the opportunities for the research in the consumer trends, interests, and tastes. The focus of this report is the campaign launched by Dove several years ago called Real Beauty Sketches. The campaign is known for becoming viral shortly after being released, gaining great success, and being named the most frequently viewed ad video of 2013 (Toure par. 1). The report will analyze the type of campaign, its social impacts, the media channel it relied on, its AIDA Model, and the STPD strategy.
Campaign Overview
Doves Real Beauty Sketches is an advertisement campaign made in the form of a short video that features a professional forensic artist who works for the FBI. Throughout the video, the artist does sketches of women based on their self-descriptions and then another series of drawings of the same women, but based on the descriptions given by the people who just met them. The final results are shown to each of the women so that they can see the difference in the way they describe themselves and the way the strangers see them.
It turns out that the portraits created based on the descriptions of the strangers are much softer, more flattering, and pleasant-looking than those drawn according to self-descriptions. In that way, the advertisement carries the core message informing the viewers that often they are very harsh and critical of themselves whereas, in reality, they are all beautiful in unique ways.
Type of Advertisement and Channels Used
The Real Beauty Sketches is a video advertisement that was placed using YouTube as the primary media channel and became viral within the first few weeks of being launched. In particular, it earned over 55 million views and was shared by many users. Dove is known for videos targeting the female audience primarily using empowering and touching messages. The Real Beauty Sketches is the fourth ad campaign of this type created by Dove.
This video, just like the other three, intended to address such issues as the social pressure on women, body image and self-esteem, artificially fixed standards of beauty, and self-perception. In 2013, Stampler stated that this video could be named one of the leading online campaigns in terms of the response of the viewers; majorly, this level of success was achieved because the video was placed simultaneously on thirty-three YouTube channels owned by Dove and translated into twenty-five languages (par. 2).
Also, the campaign was promoted using seeding based in the brick-and-mortar stores where Dove products were sold, as well as their websites and webpages. This is a clever idea to use seeding as a technique complementary to the major type of advertisement (video) that stimulates the consumers interest to the ad and raises their awareness of the campaign (Liu-Thompkins 59).
Phases of Consumer Behavior (AIDA Model)
The video of the campaign carries a very clear empowering and awareness-raising key. As a result, it is possible to conclude that two of the elements of the AIDA Model are pursued attention and interest. Knowing that the campaign was developed specifically for the Internet, the marketers of Dove had to face the challenges of the online advertisement its ubiquitous presence that makes them annoying to the users of websites so they begin to use advertisement-blocking applications or simply ignore the ads (Hinz et al. 1).
Moreover, Baltes emphasizes the importance and quality of the content selected by the companies for the marketing campaigns of their products and brands (114). To be more precise, surrounded by all types of advertisements, the contemporary users of the Internet have learned not to react to ad banners and messages. That way, the advertisement is to capture their attention and interest to become noticed and shared. This was the strategy chosen by Dove; and according to its result, the marketers were very successful.
In particular, the video under discussion uses the self-esteem boosting message for the female viewers and does it in a very touching manner so that the viewers not only become impressed by the video but also feel the need to share it with their friends. In that way, the main technique used in the video is the appeal to emotion. This technique can be opposed to the reason-based methods of persuasion (Hua 67).
In particular, the emotion that the advertisement evokes tends to be associated with the viewers with the product that is promoted. As a result, products and brands stop being the goods only but become the entities comprised of the consumers perceptions and ideas that determine how well they sell (Yen, Lin, and Lin 59). In the Real Beauty Sketches video, none of the featured people mention Dove or the names of any of its products, so it can be viewed as the surrogate advertisement (similar to those of liquor).
However, the video is strongly associated with the brand. The colors used in the video are mainly of cold range and typical for the Doves brand white, blue, and gold; there is a lot of light, and the background music is soothing so the overall mood of the video is serene but slightly sad to portray the emotions of the women in it quiet and pleasant surprise immediately followed by the realization that they have been too critical of themselves. The only text the video includes is its final message that says You are more beautiful than you think in the font traditionally used by Dove in all of its advertisements. In that way, the brand or product name does not appear anywhere in the video but yet it is associated with the brand.
Social Impacts
At the official website of Dove, there is a statement that only 11% of women all around the world can confidently admit that they consider themselves beautiful, which means that the vast majority of women are dissatisfied with the way they look and feel the pressure to look better (Dove par. 4). This statement reflects how high the social pressure on women is and how much it affects them in everyday life making them stress out over the issues that are turned into a problem artificially.
Using the advertisement videos such as The Real Beauty Sketches, Dove is attempting to raise the global societys awareness of the problematic social trend that is harming at least 50% of humanity daily. Doves social impact is the provision of emotional support to women using expressing solidarity and demonstrating that they should be more open-minded and less critical of their faces and bodies because the artificially created beauty standards exist only in the fashion magazines, whereas in reality, people are capable of recognizing the diverse beauty and appreciating it.
STPD Strategy
STPD strategies are comprised of four concepts segmentation, targeting, positioning, and differentiation. Doves video is oriented at the primarily female segment of the consumer base and targets women of all ages, and in particular, the ones who suffer from low self-esteem due to their appearances. Through the advertisement, the brand positions itself as accepting and embracive of all types of looks. Dove attempts to create the point of difference juxtaposing itself to all the other companies manufacturing beauty products as the one that battles the artificially established beauty standards and views its customers and unique and beautiful offering support and understanding.
Conclusion
The initial goals of The Real Beauty Sketches campaign by Dove were to appeal to the strong emotion of the female audience of all ages and offer a touching message about the uniqueness and beauty of each woman as a technique to persuade the viewers that the brand cares about their wellbeing and happiness. Goals were achieved by Dove because the video went viral very soon after being released, earned over 50 million views during the first few weeks, and then doubled this result in a couple of months. The popularity of the campaign indicates that the viewers were touched by it and wanted to share it with others.
Works Cited
Baltes, Loredana. Content marketing the fundamental tool of digital marketing. Economic Sciences 8.57 (2015): 111-118. Print.
Hinz, Olver, Bernd Skiera, Christian Barrot, and Jan Becker. Seeding Strategies for Viral Marketing: An Empirical Comparison. Journal of Marketing (2012): 1-50. Print.
Yen, Hui Yun, Po Hsien Lin, and Rungtai Lin. Emotional Product Design and Perceived Brand Emotion. International Journal of Advances in Psychology 3.2 (2014): 59-65. Print.
The 3-minute advertisement of Dove launched in 2013 is a part of the companys Real Beauty campaign. Dove is a beauty product company, a division of the FMCG giant Unilever. The advertisement named Dove Real Beauty Sketches is a video edited film of 3 minutes of an experiment that the company did. It invited a forensic sketch artist to draw the women. This artist sat is a separated space where he could not see the women (see figure 1).
The advertisement begins with a piece of soothing instrumental music. The sketch artist introduces himself. Then a female voice, presumably that of one of the participants, say that when they enter the hall, they can see someone sitting with a drafting board. Another participant informs the viewers that neither they nor the man can see each other. First, the women described themselves, and then strangers, who had been acquainted during the experiment, were asked to describe their new friends.
The result was similar in almost all cases. Women were most critical of their appearances, and others felt they were beautiful. This advertisement went viral in 2013 and has become the most viewed advertisement of the year. The ad is a part of the companys Real Beauty campaign, which was made to develop the complete Dove brand, which makes beauty products for hair and skin. Dove makes soaps, creams, and shampoo for women. The target customers of the advertisement are, therefore, women, of varied age group.
Further, women shown in the advertisement are mostly women from the middle-class economic background, of age group varying from mid-twenties the to late fifties. The target customers are usually women who feel that they are not beautiful enough and have issues identifying themselves as good looking. The advertisement was an effort to boost the self-concept of women. The ad aimed to increase the self-esteem of the target customers. This essay analyzes this advertisement. The advertisement was shot in San Francisco (Vega). The loft where the video was taken is an open space with almost no furniture except for a sofa for the participants, a white curtain dividing the space between the artist and the participant, and a chair and easel for the sketch artist.
Figure 1: A snapshot of the advertisement with the artist one side of the curtain and a participant on the other (Vega).
Research shows emotion plays an active role in the decision-making process of consumers (Kemp, Bui and Chapa 347). Often consumers consider feeling as part of their product-purchasing phase. Positive emotions are shown at the end of the advertisement often demonstrate a positive attitude towards the ad and to the brand (Kemp, Bui, and Chapa 349). They create a form of hedonic rationalization, which mitigates the consumption of products associated with the brand. Doves Real Beauty Sketch advertisement aims to create an emotional association of its beauty products with the consumers, increase product recall, and the create a hedonistic rationalization process that mitigates the guilt feeling women at time feel while purchasing beauty products.
Emotion has been an integral part of all advertisements. Emotions are successful in grabbing the attention of the viewers and create interest among viewers regarding the product, which leads to the desire to acquire it (Poels and Dewitte 19). These three things lead to action. The primary aim of the advertisement by Dove was to grab the attention of consumers towards its products and associate its products with self-worth through the use of experimentation, emotional appeal, music, and white curtain.
The association is essential in understanding the effectiveness of the ad. Emotions and instant feelings evoked in the consumer play an active role in steering the judgment that viewers create about the ad, the product, and the brand. The advertisement is a mediator in explaining to the viewers that mostly women forget their physical and emotional self, and become overly critical of themselves. Such self-boosting ads create a sense of bonding among women, and a realization towards them; they are not the only one who is hard on themselves.
Mostly women feel that they are not good looking, and that is how they describe themselves. The ad very tactfully appeals to a preexisting feeling among the target group and helps to regulate the motions of the consumers. For instance, the participants are women whom Dove directly wants to target as consumers of their products. They show these women addressing themselves as less beautiful than what they are. A forensic sketch artist puts their self-description to effect. When others describe these women, they describe them as what they see in them, and their description always turned out to be more accurate and beautiful.
Then ad, in the end, captures the emotions of the women who see both the pictures and realize that what they have described themselves is highly critical. Some of them know that they are still beautiful, even if they do not want to express it to themselves. The women demonstrate heightened emotions, and the ad ends with comments of participants. Dove being a hedonic product, had appealed to the senses of women and elicited a desire in them to look after themselves. Women tend to overlook their own needs and forget themselves in the humdrum of familial responsibilities. This ad appealed to the lost urges in women to feel beautiful. This emotion is a powerful and complex emotion incited by the ad. The ad aims to associate a complicated feeling with their product.
The ad creates a greater congruence of self-concept and brand image, which may imply that the ad increased product involvement. The ad does not talk of the product, except for in the end when it adds that the ad is by Dove with the brand logo. The complete absence of the product and product appeal by participants of an experiment increases the curiosity of the viewers. Further, the suspense that is retained until the end when the two pictures are revealed creates an association of the viewer with the ad. The viewers are engaged in watching the ad. Once they learn about the outcome of the experiment, they become curious. They also try to evaluate themselves based on the result of the test. This creates an association between their boosts in self-evaluation, positive, emotion, and association with the brand, Dove.
The real beauty ad campaign of Dove aimed to break the stereotypical image of women that ads create. Earlier ads of beauty products were celebrity endorsed. The aim was to create a perfect ideal for the consumers that they could achieve by using the product. However, in this campaign, Dove wanted to show its consumers that beauty was in all women, irrespective of how they felt about themselves. The viewers of the ad would associate the advertisement with a brand that appreciates the beauty of an ordinary woman rather than a skinny, adolescent supermodel.
The models that the Dove ad showed were not professionals but regular women. Their age range was a fit for the target customer group that the ad aimed at. The ad did not promote the brand but rather incited the self-image of women that they carry. It evoked an emotion of self-confidence and boosted self-assurance.
The other props that are used in the ad are music. It begins with a high note, to catch the attention of the viewers, and then, as the sketch artist begins to introduce himself, mellows down. Music in the advertisements is an instrumental composition. Absence of words in the music does not muddle the information provided through the ad. Music has attention gaining effectiveness in ads. The high note of the music played initially in the Dove ad successfully catches the viewers attention. Then the mellowed music that continually plays in the background is almost inaudible, but it helps in holding the attention of the viewers. The music in the advertisement is not very loud, which has a possibility of drowning the central message of the ad.
The placement of the curtain dividing the space of the artist and the participants describing them is something that instantly catches ones attention. The flowing white curtain shows a psychological and emotional barrier that women have in expressing themselves and hence ends up being overly critical of their beauty. The curtain becomes the symbol of this barrier of self and the felt-self. When the participants are shown the picture, this barrier is removed, clearing their clouded self-concept.
The ad tried to re-create the self-concept of women through experimentation, music, curtain, and emotional appeal to create an association of the brand with the real beauty that is hidden in all women. The ad has tried to appeal to the emotional concept of their target demographics, creating an appeal to look for beauty within themselves. The ad deliberately breaks through the stereotypical idea of beauty. Dove has tried to make a more believable ad. The advertisement attempts to address the fear in women to accept that they might be beautiful. This might be because of a cultural and societal pressure that ordinary women face to remain pure.
One comment at the end of the ad from a participating woman states: I should be more grateful for my natural beauty. It impacts the choices and the friends we make, the jobs we go out for, the way we treat our children, it impacts everything. (Dove) The comment shows that the experimentation has made the woman feel that she did not feel worthy or did not care for her natural beauty. She realized the worth of her natural beauty through the little experiment. The viewers of the ad, on the other hand, would be emotionally associated with this older woman and feel that they too are naturally beautiful.
Consequently, when they would associate a brand with their natural beauty is Dove. The ad points out that women tend to see themselves as objects that could be beautiful. They do not consider themselves important. However, the knowledge that they are impressive would make them assured in life and turn women into more confident individuals.
Works Cited
Dove. 2013 Dove Real Beauty Sketches. 2013. Dove Real Beauty Sketches.Web.
Kemp, Elyria, My Bui and Sindy Chapa. The role of advertising in consumer emotion management. International Journal of Advertising 31(2) (2012): 339-353. Print.
Poels, Karolien and Siegfried Dewitte. How to Capture the Heart? Reviewing 20 Years of Emotion Measurement in Advertising. Journal of Advertising Research 46(1) (2006): 18-37. Print.
The Dove 2004 campaign was a step in the right direction. Not only did women get a chance to challenge standards of beauty through advertisements, but they engaged in conversations about the same in various forums. Many women are highly apprehensive about their bodies, and these insecurities often start in school.
Therefore, it was laudable that Dove sponsored self esteem workshops for school girls. The cosmetic industrys definition is quite narrow. Therefore, the campaign was an attempt to expand this definition beyond stereotypes. The numerous photographs the company displayed in the campaign sent the message that beauty is attainable and unique to an individual.
On that basis, it was indeed reasonable for the company to pursue such a strategy. As a leading consumer products retailer, Dove has the resources and the marketing advantage to change the conversation on beauty. It can make images of female beauty a celebration of womens diversity rather than an endorsement of one narrow representation of the same.
Critics affirm that Dove has no right to use moral marketing because some of their products contradict this message. For instance, the organization sells anti-wrinkle cream, yet its advertisements try to pass old women as beautiful and acceptable. Furthermore, it retouched the so-called real women that were involved in the campaign.
The question one must ask is whether women should keep buying beauty products from conventional advertisers, who contribute towards unrealistic standards of beauty, or buy them from those that embrace non stereotypical beauty. Women want consumer products to enhance their beauty. Sometimes this may involve eradication of spots or wrinkles.
Therefore, critics should not crucify Dove for this. After all, it is a for-profit organization that must sell products. It is quite possible for a company to market itself as an ethical one. Once the idea is entrenched in peoples minds, then customers would purchase Doves products.
The organization can tackle some of the negative fallout from the campaign by playing by its own rules. If it is criticizing other organizations for retouching their models, then it should not do the same; all models must be completely natural. Furthermore, the company should not just promote self esteem in North America and do the opposite in other countries. Doves real beauty campaign must be in tandem with other messages that it is spreading around the world.
Campaign critique
The first impression
The first impression of the material was that it was different even defiant. The nude images of unconventionally attractive women were quite arresting. One immediately wants to know what the advertisements are about. Clearly, when it comes to attention-grabbing, this campaign was on point. Other than that, they seem to be saying something different from conventional advertisers.
They are not causing self doubt among women by displaying impossible ideals. At surface value, the campaign seems brave and noble. The viral videos that feature teenagers and how they feel about their bodies are also quite extraordinary. Some of the girls felt skinny, yet their features were nowhere close to that characteristic (Dove, n.d.).
Others discussed how difficult it was to feel beautiful because their classmates criticized them for whatever quality they possessed; be it thin or fat. The honesty in the mini features was admirable and something refreshing from the beauty industry. In fact, their comments were quite relatable to most women.
Strengths and weaknesses of the campaign
The key strength of the campaign is that it uses naturally-shaped models. They seem to be having fun, and are sending the message that they have embraced who they are.
Marketing of beauty products aims to cause anxiety while this promotion appears to dissipate it. It is laudable that the firm involved a diverse array of women. Some were black and others white; it had old and young models too. The company stretched the limits with regard to self esteem by offering women an alternative to conventional definitions of beauty (Dove Canada, n.d.).
One of the obvious weaknesses of the campaign is that some of the women in the campaign appear air brushed. While most of them were curvy women, none of them had stretch marks, spots or wrinkles. One would also argue that the advertisement was objectifying women by displaying them in their underwear.
Critics would campaign if typical, skinny women were posing in their inner ware. However, the same is not always true for slightly unattractive women. It is also hypocritical that the company is selling firming lotion in the campaign yet it is asking women to accept who they are.
Rating the campaign
Since the campaign reached a wide audience and was responsible for sales increases of up to $500 million, then one can assert that it was highly successful. However, the controversy and the negative backlash in 2007 and 2010 neutralized these gains substantially. In 2007, renowned digital photographer Pascal Dangin revealed that the pictures of all the women in Dove campaign were retouched.
Additionally, in 2010, the organization made a casting call for models in the real beauty campaign. However, they were quite hypocritical about this aspect, as well, since they were very prescriptive on what they defined as a real woman. The casting call at Craigs list wanted women who had flawless skin as well as other conventional beauty features. Individuals felt that the company was saying one thing in public and propagating the same superficialities privately.
This illustrates that the company did not simply have altruistic goals in mind. One may have to accept that the organizations key goal is to make profits. My objection to the advert may emanate from a need to separate commercial activities from charitable ones.
However, it is possible to merge these two intentions if the audience adopts a less cynical approach (Traister, 2005). The company contributes towards a culture of positive self image while at the same sells its products. The beauty industry is inundated with images of hyper sexualized women. Any company that does the opposite is definitely a welcome entity.
Campaign creation
Market segment
The market segment for the campaign will consist of young to middle-aged women between the ages of eighteen to thirty five. This segment was selected because they are some of the most insecure consumers in the population. They frequently struggle with acceptance and self esteem in school as well as their workplaces (Mediasmarts, n.d.).
Older women tend to have accepted their bodies, so they do not need further convincing concerning how beautiful they are. The idea behind the approach is that while Dove may be selling beauty products, which change peoples appearance, it is doing so in a way that celebrates rather than shuns real beauty. The beauty industry may have a long way to go in terms of overcoming these stereotypes, but Dove is initiating this change.
The company intends on selling itself as an ethical company. The promotions will send messages to young girls that they are worth something. At the same time, the continual display of the Dove brand at the end of each promotional media campaign will cause the name to stick in peoples mind. As people head to supermarkets, then they will experience brand recall and probably purchase the companys products.
This time, none of the models will be carefully picked. If they all seem physically attractive, then the company will be blamed for cherry picking. Additionally, non controversial products like soap will be sold in the campaign. Customers criticized the organization for selling anti-aging products in the 2004 real beauty promotion. Therefore, this time it will only focus on products that all women need as basic needs.
Media selection
The promotion will be an extension of the 2004 campaign. However, this time it will eliminate all the controversy surrounding the first attempt. First, the company will not do any retouching to make the models more attractive. In fact, the campaign will focus on natural beauty. The heart of the promotion will be a reality video that shows what real beauty is. Everything from the casting call, to the photo sessions as well as other elements of the photo shoot will be recorded.
The campaign will focus on the stories of five women who overcame great odds in life. The video will be available on YouTube as well as several partner television stations. Voices of the women will also be part of a radio station advert. After the photo shoot, Dove will spend time with these women for one full day.
When doing so, photographers will take shots of instances in which these women demonstrated real beauty. Thereafter, one photo will be selected for a billboard and it will be a non-altered version of the person in the interview (Feron, 2008). All the media platforms selected will end with the following phrases; Embrace your natural beauty with Dove!
It should be noted that the Dove brand will appear two times in the advertisement; at the beginning of the video and at the end. The beginning will have this advertisement because they will know which company is sponsoring the self esteem workshops. At the end of video, it will display the companys name in order to imprint in customers minds the ethical nature of the organizations initiative.
In keeping with earlier themes, the campaign will also entail a series of workshops that will feature high-profile speakers. These will be women who have written books about self love and acceptance. Motivational speakers who have experience in the field will also be selected for the campaign. The events will take place statewide using a road trip to market the ideas.
Material will also be available on the internet through banner ads for the workshops. These ads will be available on websites that focus on beauty. For instance, websites for skin lightening, growing long hair, smooth skin and other topics will be selected. They will target those online visitors because they probably have low self esteem.
Print media will consist of magazines and newspapers, where images of the five ladies in the campaign will be displayed.
Development of all promotional materials
The first media platform is a viral video. It will be available on YouTube, the company website a well as radio and television stations. This media platform was selected because it worked very well in 2004 since it struck a chord with most listeners. The internet as a media platform will work through banner ads with pictures of the subjects in the campaign.
Billboards will also be another platform where pictures of the women will be splashed across several streets in town. Only those places with lots of traffic will be selected for this purpose. However, because the nudity of the women in the 2004 campaign sparked off a lot of controversy, it will be best to use billboards with fully-clothed women.
Conclusion
It is likely that the new marketing campaign will yield effective results because it addresses most of the controversies in the 2004 promotion. First, no retouching, airbrushing or cherry picking will take place. Secondly, the message will be propagated across the globe. Additionally, no controversial products will be linked to the campaign. Finally, all the women will be fully clothed so as to eliminate criticism on how the campaign objectified women by displaying nude women.
References
Dove Canada. Self-Esteem Resources. Web.
Dove. Dove Evolution Video. Dove Campaign for Real Beauty Ads. Web.
Feron, G. (2008). Glen Feron The Art of Retouching. Web.
It was reasonable for Dove to do campaign against photo-enhanced advertisements
Beauty and cosmetic producers often use photo-enhanced advertisements for their products. Photo-enhanced images deceive vulnerable potential customers who end up purchasing those products, some of whom are of low quality and standards.
Firms use photo-enhanced advertisements due to stiff competition in the industry, thus an effort to gain competitive advantage over other the competitors. Therefore, Dove intervened with the promotion trend in order to sensitise consumers on the tricks applied by producers when persuading customers to buy their products.
Dove carried out an initiative to promote all types of natural body images of women
The main objective of the campaign was to promote self-esteem in vulnerable females, easily deceived by photo-enhanced advertisements. Women care about their body images, and thus many players in the cosmetic industry use attractive images in promoting their products to women. Dove campaigns bar firms from using fake images on their product promotions as a moral obligation to protect the society from unethical businesspersons.
However, Dove is also a player in the cosmetic industry and cannot avoid using women imagery in product promotion campaigns. Most of its products are skin-firming cellulites that enhance womens self-esteem. In order to drive the point home effectively, Dove used natural images of women in campaigns for its products. It is not possible to make consumer products and fail to exploit women because Dove exploited women in an effort to promote their self-esteem.
I would recommend Dove to continue with the campaign against abuse of women imageries in advertising. However, I would recommend Dove to change its moral approach by applying images that are pleasing to the public. Furthermore, I tend to believe that Dove prepared for criticisms that would arise against their campaigns from the beginning. Therefore, they should continue with the campaign and ignore the criticisms, but consider changing the images.
Campaign Critique
Dove used unimpressive materials in the campaign efforts. Natural images are not impressive because they disclose the physique that women try to eliminate from their bodies. In addition, the majority of women hate fat bodies and due to that element, firms opted to use thin women in their advertisements to impress the targeted consumers. However, Dove should stick to their advertising material for they are the best for carrying out the sensitisation to the women.
Strengths and weaknesses of the Dove campaigns
Strengths of the Campaign
Promotes ethics in the business Photo-enhanced images are deceiving and thus unethical for a vendor to use them in an effort to attract customers. Doves campaign is ethical and beneficial to customers who often fall into traps of unethical vendors in the beauty and cosmetic industry.
It is sensitising the women whose rights are violated: The campaign is sensitising women about violation of their rights by vendors and firms that produce beauty products for economic reasons. Hence, women acquire knowledge about the types of advertisements that they should believe in before purchasing the products.
Promotes self-esteem:- Dove campaigns are for promoting the self-esteem of women who dislike their natural physique, and thus end up falling into the traps of deceiving vendors; In addition, it targets young females and encourages them to acknowledge their physical as they age.
Fights against sub-standard products: Firms producing sub-standard products take advantage of photo-enhanced advertisements in acquiring market share. Dove campaigns bar firms from taking advantage of unethical advertising methods, but rather concentrating on producing high quality products.
Promotes natural looks- By using natural images, women are inspired to appreciate their natural looks coupled with appreciating the physical appearance of their colleagues. Photo-enhanced images deter women from appreciating natural looks of their colleagues.
Weaknesses of the Campaign
Use of unimpressive images: Dove used natural images that were vulnerable to criticisms in its effort of promoting self-esteem to women. Natural images are unpleasant to the public arena although there was no alternative to bring the intended message home.
Economic impact: Effort to persuade women to acknowledge their natural physique had a negative economic impact. Players in the beauty and cosmetic industry started to count on losses after many women reduced their purchasing power on their products.
Failed to promote skin-firming products- Doves campaigns turned against its products as the public viewed it as a hypocrite player trying to gain market advantage over other players. There were criticisms that its campaigns were more of advertisements aimed at eliminating competitors from the market. Hence, the targeted consumers received Doves skin firming products with a bad attitude.
Rating of direct marketing is not an easy task, but done with regard to its effectiveness
The increase in the products sales volume is the ultimate measure of effectiveness of direct marketing. Percentage increase in sales volume is divided by 10 in order to obtain 1 to10 rating system, whereby 1 refers to absolute awful performance and 10 refers to great performance.
Dove needed to strengthen its campaign by two major factors into consideration
Those factors included ethics and its interests in the industry. It is unethical to display natural images that are disturbing to the public. For instance, there have been many criticisms on images of fat women displayed in the campaigns advertisements. It would be prudent for the company to consider using images that are pleasant, but natural.
In addition, Dove had economic interests in the industry, which put it under public criticisms. In order to strengthen its campaign, it should have pulled out of business and concentrated on the campaigns. Pulling out of business is a good move in the public arena and hence public would give attention to the campaigns.
Campaign Creation
Dove is a new entrant in this business of sensitising public against fake products advertisements. Therefore, it has no competitors in the market, but the business focuses on the promotion of ethics adherence by other businesses. Even if a firm has no competitors in the market, that is, it enjoys monopoly in the market; it has to adhere to some rules and regulations as set by the authorities in a given location.
There are four main process of the campaign creation. The first step involves identification of the problem. Dove observes that businesses persons are using photo-enhanced advertisements that deceive customers, and end up frustrating clients after failing to meet their ends.
The second step for campaign creation is the development of the solution to the problem. In this case, solution to the problem is campaign against photo-enhanced advertisements for cosmetic and beauty products. In addition, dove considers some factors before carrying out the campaign.
These factors are business ethics and the effects of the campaign. To begin with, business ethics demand that businesspersons should uphold the value of the products and honesty to their clients, which they had failed to comply with thus opting to use photo-enhanced advertisements. Therefore, dove found itself in a good position to carryout the campaign.
Secondly, dove needed to consider the effects the campaign would have to the public. The theme of the campaign was to create awareness to the public that cosmetic and beauty products do not bring the desired changes in the human skin as their advertisements dictate. Therefore, public should not rely on advertisements for information about them.
The third step is the development of the campaign. In this step, dove needed to consider the best method for the execution of the campaign depending on the nature of the target genre. In this case, the most affected clients were youthful and middle aged women and therefore decided to use natural images that would strike them hard.
In addition, it noted that photo-enhanced images were of skinny sized women and decided to incorporate fat women. In addition, dove identified the best method of campaign as advertisements in the televisions and billboards along the major highways and city streets.
The fourth step is execution of the campaign and evaluation of effects on the public. Initially, the public cannot welcome this new form of advertising because natural images are disgusting to the eyes of the public. However, dove prepared for criticisms from both the public and the businesspersons after which the public would react depending on how it responded to the criticisms.
Over the last couple of decades, the internet rapidly began to gain popularity and attract more and more users. As a result, it quickly became one of the leading media employed for business, marketing, and shopping. Today, each company or organization that claims to be successful and progressive relies on the internet as the means to strengthen their brand reputation, to attract new clients and workers, promote goods and services, and communicate with their target audience.
For the marketers from all around the planet, the World Wide Web provides a huge field for the competition aimed at winning the attention and devotion of the users. Also, it carries multiple benefits for the businesses as it allows them reach their existing and potential customers in a variety of circumstances and appealing for their different characteristics. The ubiquity of the internet in the developed countries has made advertisement ever-present in the daily life of the modern individuals.
In some cases, the advertisement may be so persistent that it starts to seem as if getting under it influence is no longer optional for the contemporary consumers. This paper will focus on one of the most influential online marketing and branding campaigns that took place within the last few years Real Beauty Sketches by Dove. The campaign video has become viral within a very short period after it was first launched.
As a result, it was recognized as the most popular online ad of 2013 (Toure, 2013). The paper will attempt to analyze the keys to the success of this campaign (its elements, mechanisms, appeal), along with providing the profile and background of the company that launched it, and its online marketing strategy and brand value overall. Further, in this paper, there will be an inclusion of two extensions of this ad campaign that could take place to make it even more popular and impactful.
Brand Profile: Dove
Ghodeswar (2008) defined a brand as a symbol intended to identify the goods or services of either one seller or a group of sellers, and to differentiate those goods or services from those of competitors (p. 4). As a brand, Dove has quite a long history as its origins go back to the Second World War when the manufacturer of cleansing products Unilever was required to solve a problem for the US army and develop a formula for a body wash that would be easy to lather with salty sea water (Dove: Brand Profile, 2016).
Battling a persistent outcome of irritated skin, the manufacturers have eventually created a soap bar that partly consisted of moisturizing cream and was marketed as a revolutionary product that did not dry out skin after the washing procedure. This feature still remains one of the main advantages of Dove products. Initially, the soap bar was the only product of Dove, and it quickly outsold Unilevers other similar brand Lux (Dove: Brand Profile, 2016).
From a US-based brand, Dove soon expanded internationally and is now one of the worlds leading global brands focused on beauty and personal hygiene products (Dove: Brand Profile, 2016). Eventually, Dove created more and more products and variations. Today, the brand markets facewash in a form of a soap bar, body lotions, creams, shower gels, hair care, and deodorants. The company develops the products for both women and men.
As stated on the companys website, Doves vision is to promote beauty as the source of confidence, and not anxiety (Dove, 2016). This perspective is based on the observation that the majority of the contemporary women admit to not being fully satisfied with their appearances and willing to change how the look.
Doves Online Marketing
The main objective of any brand is to facilitate the connection between the consumer and the manufacturer and preserve this connection from being destroyed by the competing brands. Doves mission and vision are the main emphases and driving force of their online marketing strategy.
The campaigns developed and launched by Dove focus mainly on the real beauty as opposed to artificially created standards imposed on the modern individuals. That way, Dove presents itself as a freedom fighter of some sort that battles the stereotypes and promotes diversity, freedom, and confidence as necessary aspects of beauty.
Ever since Dove expanded into a strong competitor in the personal care products industry in the 1990s, the brand made a major emphasis on its attachment to what they refer to as real or natural beauty, therefore, creating an image of a brand that is easy to relate to, down to earth, and the most accessible (Dove: Brand Profile, 2016).
The three of Doves closest competitors, as established by Kantar Brandz listing in 2014, are Nivea and Clinique (who were ranked above), as well as Olay that showed lower popularity (Dove: Brand Profile, 2016). The overall brand value of Dove (according to the data from 2014) is 4.8 billion dollars. Expanding their range of products and attempting to penetrate new market niches, Dove had to attack the areas dominated by very strong and well-known brands.
That way, the company needed to find their points of difference to appeal to the customer segments targeted by the other product manufacturers and marketers. In response, the competitors have launched the extensions of their own making the competition even tighter and tougher.
As a result, the marketers of Dove have developed its Real Beauty Campaign that immediately made the brand one of the highest spenders in the United States in terms of advertising and marketing. For instance, as measured in 2013, Doves media expenditures equaled about 195 million dollars (Dove: Brand Profile, 2016). The main marketing strategy of the brand was to provide a wide range of products for a large customer base covering buyers of all ages and both sexes.
The marketing campaign targeting men is called Real Strength while that for women is Real Beauty. The latter includes several parts that were released at different periods. The focus of this paper is the campaign called real beauty Sketches that appeared in 2013. It appealed to the customer based employing strong emotions and went viral within just a few weeks becoming the brands most powerful and successful advertisement.
Real Beauty Sketches: Campaign Description
Doves Real Beauty Sketches features a short video (about 3 minutes long) where a well-trained forensic artist from the FBI does blind sketches of women. The artist cannot see the women, and he is guided by their self-descriptions. As soon as the first sketches of each woman are done, the artist moves on to the second ones that are based on the descriptions of the same women but by the strangers who have spoken to them for just a few minutes.
At the end of the video, each of the portrayed women is presented both of her pictures. Astonishingly, the portraits based on their self-perceptions looked harsher and less attractive, while those guided by the strangers descriptions were lighter and more pleasant-looking. The empowering message of the video is that modern women tend to be unreasonably critical towards their appearance and in reality they are much more beautiful than they think.
Campaign Success
The Real Beauty Sketches campaign was launched in a form of a video using YouTube and managed to earn over 55 million views within just a few weeks. It was the fourth video in Doves Real Beauty focus after such advertisements as Real Curves, Evolution, and Onslaught.
All of these videos targeted female audience and appealed to strong emotions connected to self-perception, personal image, social pressure created by the media driven by fixed standards of beauty, self-esteem, and anxiety related to appearance. A month after the release, Real Beauty Sketches has established a new record of 114 million views on YouTube which immediately made it the leading video advertisement in history of online marketing according to the audience response (Stampler, 2013).
Mechanisms Employed
The huge success of the video that made it exemplary for all the online marketers and advertisement creators was created due to a powerful combination of several components such as seeding strategy, shareability, excellent knowledge of the target audience, and the appeal to strong emotions.
Viral Mechanism and Shareability
For a campaign message to become viral it needs to be shared by multiple viewers within the network where it is posted (van der Lans, van Bruggen, Eliashberg, Wierenga, 2010). Real Beauty Sketches video was placed on YouTube.
In order to ensure that the video is exposed to as many viewers as possible, the marketers invested in its popularization by means of its translation into twenty-five languages and posted on all of the multiple official YouTube channels owned by Dove (Stampler, 2013).
As a result, the overall coverage of the campaign included as many as 110 countries. YouTube was chosen as the leading platform for the campaign because it provided the best opportunities for sharing and discussion. That way, a digital campaign was preferred to the TV commercial that would not be shareable, and in turn, would never become viral.
Appeal to Strong Emotions
Appeal to emotions is often used as a persuasion tool in rhetoric. Real Beauty Sketches video was carefully designed in order to address a powerful feeling that was shared by the majority of women. As noted at Doves official website, there is a research that proves that 90% of females around the world are dissatisfied with the way they look to a certain degree and wish to change certain aspects of their faces or bodies (Dove, 2016).
In the article The Power of Emotional Appeals in Advertising the Influence of Concrete Versus Abstract Affect on Time-Dependent Decisions , Bulbul and Menon (2010), explore the dependency between the impact of the emotional content of the advertisement messages and the decisions the buyers make in the long and short terms. The authors explain that appeal to emotion in marketing is opposed to the reason-based persuasion.
That way, it is possible for the advertisers to convince the consumers that certain product portrayed as associated with certain emotions can be perceived as responsible for them. This technique is successfully employed in the Real Beauty Sketches video where Dove products are associated with support and self-esteem boost in women due to the persistent and lengthy real beauty focus and the emotional message for the women to trust Dove is this brand appreciates them the way they are.
Judging from the immediate response of the viewers that made the video viral all over the women, the message was received by the women and effectively shared. This phenomenon was a demonstration of the short-term effect of the advertisement that resulted in the viewers decision to inform the others about this message.
In other words, extremely high shapreability of the video was achieved through the appeal to strong emotion to which the vast majority of the target customers could relate. In addition, the insightful nature of the message pointing out an unreasonable self-criticism that brings more harm than use to the women made the clients emotional and encouraged them to show the video to as many of their friends as possible in order to enlighten them.
Yen, Lin, and Lin (2014) discuss brands as abstract entities compiled of the consumers perceptions, knowledge, and emotions associated with products. Using emotions, the brands connect the product designers and the consumers. That way, the emotional aspect of brands (or brand emotions) are highly important when it comes to marketing and advertisement).
The Real Beauty campaign created by Dove is driven by a clearly outlined story and centered around the consumer searching for the points of relation combining them with the brands points of difference the key elements of the emotional branding (Yen et al. 2014).
Seeding Tools
The campaign was promoted both online and offline using regular stores where Doves products were sold on the regular basis and its websites. As noticed by van der Lans et al. (2010), seeding is often used as a supporting measure for a viral campaign as motivating the viewers to share a video may be rather difficult and costly.
Studying the content of the massage carried in the video of Real Beauty Sketches, the marketing campaign was funded very generously, and managed to cover as many strategies as there were available, and that is why its success was so fast and impressive.
In this reference, the internet plays an important role as a means empowering every user to produce the influence much larger to what they would have without the internet. While meeting a certain number of people and telling them about particular content could take hours or even days, sharing information on social networks takes seconds and allows the individuals reach out to much larger audiences.
The Message and the Product Correlation
Viewing the campaign one may notice that neither of Doves products are present in it in any way. The participants do not discuss beauty products and personal care, no one even says the word Dove . The video carries a form of social advertisement that addressed an important and widely spread issue that distresses certain population (in this case the women).
As a result, Forbes contributor Jonathan Salem Baskin (2013) wonders whether or not such campaign should be referred to as marketing as it literally has no product placement whatsoever. Interestingly, the campaign looks more like an awareness raiser than an advertisement. Baskin (2013) emphasizes that even though the Real Beauty Sketches video has become viral within just a few weeks and was viewed, discussed, and shared by millions of people, not many critics and analysts noticed its effect on the companys sales.
Did the video actually help Dove sell its lotions, soap bars, hair products, and deodorants? How many of the viewers to whom the video seemed touching and insightful buy Doves personal care products because of it and not due to various coupons or discounts Dove employs for marketing? Judging from the reviews of this online campaign, the sales impact is unknown.
However, many world renowned brands have engaged in the campaigns that do not mention their product but promote some other value instead. That way, choosing the content of the campaign, Dove had to make a choice whether to go with traditional product-focused video, or to pursue alternative goals connecting them to the product.
Dove has made a choice to promote their brand as appreciative and accepting, welcoming women of diverse shapes and backgrounds and providing confidence and support. Some of its biggest marketing campaigns were directed at the issues of fixed beauty standards that destroy womens self-image and cause their misperception of own appearances.
This step worked due to the fact that this feature is very common worldwide. Regardless of age, ethnicity, or shape, women from all around the globe tend to desire to beautify themselves or feel pressured due to some perceived inadequacies.
From the point of view of marketing, targeting a population segment based on a common trait is the key to a successful advertisement. With its Real beauty series, Dove managed to appeal to an issue shared by the vast majority of its potential customers, there for reaching out to a huge group of the population and ensuring active response to the campaign video.
Doves Points of Difference
In comparison to the other beauty and personal care products, those created by Dove are marketed in a very special way that makes this brand stand out. The overall focus of its marketing campaigns has shifted over years. At first, Dove body and facewash and soap bars were advertised as made with the generous addition of a nourishing cleansing cream, and this feature was emphasized as the main point of difference.
The advertisements and commercials of Dove were centered around this aspect stating that while other products dry out the skin and create the feeling of discomfort, Dove soap bars are much more gentle, caring, and provide the consumers with the impression of moisturized and soft skin.
However, starting with 2003, Dove has turned away from product-centered marketing, and began to appeal to emotion, promotion of confidence, diversity, and self-appreciation (Flagg, 2013). Dovers Real Beauty Sketches is also made in a form of a message celebrating the individuality of each woman. In order to strengthen its uniqueness, Dove has been launching non-traditional campaigns one after the other.
For instance, some of its advertisements featured women with curvy bodies as opposed to the traditional portrayals of women on the pages of beauty magazines, and personal care products advertisements that featured slim models.
The other messages included women of age including them in the customer base, as usually only the young individuals are celebrated whole older people are disregarded and depowered. Dove emphasized the normality of difference, publically inviting the society to embrace diversity of forms and not to limit the concept of beauty to a narrow range of fixed standards and parameters.
Showing diverse women, Dove increased its popularity helping more women relate to the advertisements. The models in the videos and pictures no longer looked unrealistically perfect. To the contrary, Dove pointed out their differences and something a woman can and should be proud of.
Having made the emotional branding its main strategy, Dove focused on the investment into this type of image promotion. Due to the strong brand recognition and trust from the side of the consumers, Dove could limit its product lines. As a result, the brand no longer needs to win new customer base segments taking over new niches and manufacturing new products. Its brand image is maintained due to the tight social relation between the customers and the brand facilitated by the emotional branding strategy.
Is It Really Just Marketing or Is It More?
As mentioned earlier, Baskin (2013) wondered whether or not Doves focus on social issues disturbing women that has been in place for many years now is very different from what most brands use to promote their products. Emphasizing its responsible attitude to beauty and the consumers, Dove creates a self-image based on social activism and desire to change certain perceptions and stereotypes, reducing the pressure in order to help the women feel more comfortable being who they are and looking the way they look.
However, Baskin (2013) notes that for now, Doves activism does not move any further than awareness raising messages generated for the purposes of brand promotion. In other words, in reality, the brand does not do anything to enforce the actual tangible change.
Some of the recommendations as to what Dove could do to strengthen the produced social impact and truly become the social equality and justice activist include the creation of a charity fund focusing on the provision of help to women hurt by social injustice, or donation to address the existing problems, promote fairer treatment of women within Unilever as a workplace, enforce policies ensuring equality and benefits for young and single mothers (Baskin, 2013).
To sum up, the current efforts of the brand definitely make an impact generating popularity to the promotional campaigns and strengthening the emotional association of the brand with responsibility among the consumers. At the same time the Real Beauty campaign cannot be recognized as anything but marketing as it seems to be directed purely at the image creation, but not at the actual social change.
Extensions to the Campaign
Developing extensions to such creative and powerful campaigns as the real beauty Sketches is challenging because the social reach of the advertisement was huge, and so was the response. An extension would need to either maintain the effect, or carry it even further strengthening the bond between the brand and the consumers established by the campaign.
Real beauty Sketches was easy to relate for the women from all around the world because it featured average females equating them to all the other representatives of beauty and personal care product consumers. However, to make the campaign interactive, Dove could post an offer for the women willing to take part in the new campaign.
The women would have to make a purchase through the official partner of the brand that sells its products. Each consumer would be sent a special code that they would have to register on the campaign website in order to become a part of a selecting campaign that would randomly name the winner codes once a week.
The group of the owners of the named codes will be invited to take part in the Real Beauty webisode where each of them would get a professional photoshoot with a typical airbrushing for a beauty magazine, and a natural photoshoot emphasizing the real beauty of each participant. That way, the extension would combine the aspects of real Beauty Sketches video and the one called Evolution that appeared several years earlier.
The webisode would include the speeded up process of preparation for both shoots and the final pictures placed next to each other for the comparison: real beauty versus magazine airbrushing. The message in the end would say: Perfect or artificial? Improved or distorted? This campaign serves as the raiser of awareness that provides inclusion to the consumers making them a part of the advertisement.
The interactivity of the campaign ensures its communication with the buyers and also it could boost the sales encouraging the viewers to buy Doves products in order to take part in the campaigns selection stage. Besides, it relates to the Real Beauty Sketches inviting average individuals to become the living demonstrations of the image and perception alterations and its effects.
The second extension would not be as interactive. It would work within the Real Beauty campaign series, but not Sketches namely. Over the last few years, there has been a discussion around the color nude, the meaning of its name, and the social implications it carries. To be more precise, the debates occurred for several different reasons, one of them was Michelle Obamas attendance of the White House event honoring the arrival of the Prime Minister of India.
The First Lady herself looked stylish in her evening gown of a shade referred to as nude or flesh by the reviewers. The generalization in the color name caused a reaction as the pale-peachy or beige color did not match Michelle Obamas skin tone and thus could not have been called flesh or nude .
The fact that there is no fixed shade for nude could become a theme for the Real Beauty extension campaign that would be done in a form of a webisode featuring several women of color trying on dresses, stockings, lingerie, and makeup items in nude . The video would emphasize the frustration of women whose skin tone is very different from what is widely recognized as flesh color. The message of this campaign could state: Beauty is different. Do not limit it .
The target audience for this campaign would be the women of color mostly, however, some of the participants in the video could be extremely pale individuals whose skin tone is not darker but lighter than what is known as nude .
That way, the advertisement would work along the lines of Real Beauty series focusing on the diversity and social bias issues and also carry a new message addressing the fixed standards of what is perceived as attractive and the pressure modern women undergo bombarded by the stereotypes that narrow down certain concepts making some groups of the population feel inadequate and forcing them to become dissatisfied with their appearances.
The key business objective for this campaign extension is to strengthen the brand reputation and recognition for the promotion of unbiased perception of beauty and responsible treatment of diverse individuals. The extension would help the brand to become more relatable. In other words, the focus of this Real beauty webisode is to maintain the association of Dove as a brand with social awareness, acceptance, support, and inclusion among diverse communities and individuals.
Conclusion
Doves Real Beauty Sketches is one of the loudest online marketing campaigns launched over the past few years. It is loaded with strong emotions and therefore, is in pursuit of the establishment of strong bond with the consumers as a primary objective. The advertisement does not involve any images of any products marketed by Dove as its purpose is to maintain the brand image and gain the consumers trust.
Focusing on social trends and issues, Dove informs its customers about its nobility, good intensions, and values higher than just financial profit. That way, instead of promoting a single product, Dove manages to promote them all at once ensuring the strong reputation of the brand as a collective symbol of its individual goods. The cleverest aspect of the campaign is its universality as it uses a feature common for the vast majority of females worldwide regardless of age, ethnicity, or shape.
Yen, H., Lin, P., & Lin, R. (2014). Emotional Product Design and Perceived Brand Emotion. International Journal of Advances In Psychology, 3(2), 59. Web.
Dove’s Care & Protect Antibacterial Body Wash front labelDove’s Care & Protect Antibacterial Body Wash ingredient label
The chosen product is Dove Care & Protect Antibacterial Body Wash, with Figures 1 and 2 showing the front label and the ingredient label of the selected product. The claim per the product’s front label: “This antibacterial body wash eliminates 99% of bacteria and moisturizes for hours, protecting your skin from dryness”. I bought the product because its cleansing and moisture retention properties are adequate. Given its moisturizing properties on the skin, this moisturizing, antibacterial body wash feels kind and caring and leaves me feeling fresh at the beginning and end of the day. It also makes me feel smooth and clean due to what it says is an integrated lotion that guards against dryness. Notwithstanding, this body wash’s delicate flower fragrance leaves me smelling great all day while cleaning my skin properly without drying it out. Moreover, to top it all off, despite being pH balanced, it is dermatologically tested and approved. Compared to regular body wash or washing my hands with soap and water, I believe that Dove Care & Protect Antibacterial Body Wash better protects me from widely transmitted bacteria.
Dove Care & Protect Antibacterial Body Wash’s’ active ingredient responsible for antibacterial properties is Benzalkonium Chloride (0.13%) since the product claims to eliminate 99% of bacteria on the skin. As a preservative in medicines or disinfectant in cleaning goods, benzalkonium is used as an antiseptic agent (Pereira & Tagkopoulos, 2019). A quaternary ammonium molecule called benzalkonium is employed as a biocide, cationic surfactant, and phase-transfer agent. Although it is an active antimicrobial agent, benzalkonium chloride is more frequently found in consumer products in the salt form. Because of this, it is used as an ingredient in antiseptic and disinfectant products and a broad range of international medicinal products as an active ingredient acting as an antimicrobial preservative.
Reference
Pereira B.M.P., & Tagkopoulos, I. (2019). Benzalkonium chlorides: uses, regulatory status, and microbial resistance. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 85(13), e00377-19: Web.
The analyzed text is a commercial video made by the Dove Company entitled “Dove Choose Beautiful: Women All over the World Make a Choice.” The purpose of the analysis presented below is to determine whether the rhetorical methods employed by Dove in the commercial are effective.
The video advertisement produced by the Dove Company is successful because it uses efficient persuasion strategies to convince all women that they are beautiful, to inspire them, and to make them believe in themselves. This video is worth discussing, as it is an excellent example of an inspiring commercial, aimed at making consumers feel good about themselves, which should eventually convince them to buy the product. Thus, the Dove Company attempts to secure people’s trust and establish brand loyalty.
Reasoning
Logos or the reasoning layer of a text comprises rhetorical methods of reasoning aimed at demonstrating and proving certain points. Rhetorical instruments used in Dove video commercials include cause and effect, better and worse, examples, and pleasant anecdotes about women who participated in the video. The commercial is based on presenting how women of various nationalities and ages react when faced with a choice: am I beautiful, or am I average? By providing lively examples of their reaction, the makers of the video appeal to our sense of reality.
We are meant to think that we are just like them and to ponder on whether we would choose the entrance labeled ‘beautiful’. The provided examples of many different reactions are to emphasize how the women feel having come in through a particular entrance. Some of them say they regretted having chosen the ‘average’ gate, some of them claimed that next time they would choose the ‘beautiful’ gate since they changed their mind, and others were simply pleased.
Thus, these examples also illustrate the cause and effect: by walking through the ‘beautiful’ door, the women felt good about themselves. One girl even used the word “triumphant”, which has a rather strong connotation. Having entered through the ‘average’ door, some of the women regretted it instantly, which caused them to make up their minds to walk in through the ‘beautiful’ door next time. Moreover, the woman that walked in with a child felt that this choice causes her to wonder whether she actually perceives herself as average, or is it caused by society’s unreasonable beauty standards.
The rhetorical method outlined above leads to another strategy – better or worse. Women are faced with a necessity to make a choice, to admit how they really feel about themselves and how they perceive themselves. The commercial demonstrates that it is far better to choose the ‘beautiful’ entrance and feel as if you are the most beautiful person in the world, rather than give into unnecessary modesty and humility. Thus, Dove tells women that they are all beautiful and it is much better to acknowledge it and feel it, as it inspires you and brings you joy.
Credibility
Ethos or credibility instruments of persuasion are employed to underline the author’s authority in order to prove a point. Supporting credibility arguments in this commercial includes examples of personal experience and identification with the readers. Personal experience is the most important credibility layer of this text, as the commercial is based on making a point through the prism of personal experiences of many different women. In the commercial, we see women of various ages, races, and nationalities facing a choice.
They share their thoughts, feelings, and conclusions they have drawn. These personal interviews add value to the idea of the commercial and ensure the viewer feels joy and sincerity emanating from the faces of women that Dove managed to convince they are truly beautiful. By presenting these short interviews, we are being told that every woman is beautiful in her own way. “It was my choice” is the opening phrase of the video, “It was a bit confronting” admits one of the women. Women sharing their feelings is a powerful credibility indicator, as it instantly makes us relate to them and wonders about ourselves. “What would you choose?” (“Dove Choose Beautiful”) is the closing phrase of the video.
Thus, identification with the viewers is the second rhetorical instrument of major significance, meant to persuade the viewers to wonder what they would do in a similar situation. The women in the commercial are very different and yet they all share the same feeling of hesitation, some of them even regret, or embarrassment. The viewers can relate to every one of these feelings, which makes the points conveyed by Dove even more convincing.
Emotions
Pathos or the emotional layer of a text comprises rhetorical instruments aimed at appealing to an emotional side of each reader/viewer. Dove video commercial employs several methods of such an appeal: a promise of enjoyment and support of our families and friends. The women that we see in the commercial seem to be deeply moved by the experience of walking through the labeled entrances.
They experience a wide range of feelings and the idea conveyed by the video comes down to the following: believe in yourself, see how beautiful you are, and enjoy life. The commercial is essentially a promise of enjoyment, as it inspires women to feel beautiful, confident, and happy. “Beautiful is a great word. So why not see what’s on the other side of that?” (“Dove Choose Beautiful”) This rhetorical question at the end of the commercial inspires women to be daring enough to acknowledge their beauty.
A mother appears in the commercial and convinces her daughter to choose the ‘beautiful’ gate. Similarly, one girl convinces the other that she should definitely choose ‘beautiful’. These scenes appeal to our emotional side as well, as they show us that we are all beautiful to our loving families and dear friends. It should be noted that the pathos persuasion techniques are usually the most efficient way to capture the readers/viewers’ attention and to pique their interest, as they appeal to our irrational side.
By evoking our emotions, feelings, and innermost thoughts the makers of the commercial reach out to us on a subconscious level. Women are encouraged to see that they are beautiful and, more importantly, that they deserve to feel beautiful and loved. Even though some women would not describe themselves as beautiful, they believe that by choosing the ‘beautiful’ entrance they will feel happy.
Conclusion
“Dove Choose Beautiful: Women All over the World Make a Choice” is a video commercial meant to inspire and encourage women around the world to see their beauty. The text employs various methods of rhetorical persuasion, including reasoning, credibility, and emotional instruments. By employing these rhetorical strategies, the makers of the commercial establish contact with the viewers on an emotional level, prove their credibility, and bring forth valid reasons why their advice will benefit every woman who takes it. Thus, Dove secures its customers’ loyalty and trust, as well as finds new customers.
Work Cited
“Dove Choose Beautiful: Women All over the World Make a Choice.” YouTube, uploaded by Dove US.
In a Facebook advertisement for Dove cosmetics, a black lady unbuttoned her dark top to reveal a white woman sporting a bright blouse below. Most people who complained about the Unilevel-owned company’s soap advertisements said that the advert showed and implied discrimination. This commercial triggered an ongoing discussion regarding the pervasive racial stereotypes seen in soap opera ads (An 12). After taking off her dark clothing, which some people claimed was racist and inaccurately represented black people, the black woman is cleansed into whiteness. The advertisement for the soap made by the Unilevel-owned firm implied to its target market that the black woman was filthy before using the product but had become clean and white as a result. The light shirt depicted the white woman as clean, whereas the voila-colored garment showed the black woman as unclean. In this essay, the development of a semiotic analysis will be the main focus to create a more comprehensive comprehension of the racial advertisement created by the Dove Company.
Semiotic Analysis
The study of social, cultural, and natural notions is done through semiotic analysis. The world is made up of various signals having both literal and figurative value. The use of the sign system and how meaning is created in social production are discussed. For example, ads are a type of visual art where each picture representation can partially serve as a sign (Rose 305). The semiotic analysis is crucial because it aims to explain the significance of signs utilized in a certain way. For example, photography is the genre since the racist Dove advertisement uses a picture inside an image. The ad’s graphic showed occasions when the white lady who appears later had smooth skin while the black woman in the picture had broken skin.
According to the advertisement, the white woman is superior to the black woman and has more attractive skin. The woman’s blackness was a sign of her filthy skin and dirt since, after a few seconds, she had whiter skin and had been cleaned. The prejudiced advertisement portrays black people as unattractive and as having undesirable attributes. In contrast, white people are denoted by lighter complexion, symbolizing their higher level of beauty. Furthermore, the advertisement implies that white people enjoy more significant benefits than black people, who lack specific attributes and privileges due to where they live.
Racism Theoretical Notion
The racist advertisement created and developed may be examined through the prism of core theoretical notions as a significant participant in the corporate sector and an affiliate company of a major multinational corporation. One of the conceptual frameworks that might be applied to this investigation is racism. Stereotypes can influence how people are seen when both sides are anonymous (Rose 275). Race is a created social category used to classify individuals and give social context to their behavior. Racism is the deliberate and systematic transfer of resources, privileges, and power from all other races to the dominant race via the establishment of social, political, economic, and cultural institutions, practices, and beliefs. Racism, which is a sort of prejudice towards social groupings, consists of three connected but distinct elements: discrimination (behavioral bias), prejudice (emotional bias), and stereotypes (cognitive bias). youth who identify as non-dominant racial or ethnic (NDRE) and those who work with young people can both suffer harmful impacts from racism.
Gender and racial diversity in advertising imagery across businesses are essential since these pictures are tailored to meet the models and representations of the target market and social media viewers. As it results in incomplete citizenship, discounted rights, undervalued respect, and undervalued participation, racism fosters power imbalances that reduce social inclusion and boost an oppressive society. However, producers and marketers have a lot of opportunity and power to address this problem (Chandler). The nuanced picture in the Dove advertisement depicts various levels of racial intolerance. Researchers claim that blatant racism in advertising has been replaced with subtle imagery in ads. The promotion was a subtly racist depiction of black people. According to academics, covert racism in advertising has replaced overt racism (Berger 63). Advertising with overt racial imagery has clear stereotyped connotations; advertising with subtle racial imagery is less clear. Subtle Racist Imagery in Ads should alter due to this overt-to-subtle transition into negative stereotyping, which frequently involves Blacks.
In essence, this is why the advertisement presented black people as less fortunate and unsuitable while portraying white people as perfect. By integrating positive pictures and advertisements about black women, we may reject stereotypes and increase the representation of black women in society. They and their well-being stand to gain a great deal from this. Additionally, the advertisement shows negative stereotyping of black women, frequently perceived as racism and prejudice. Furthermore, it is viewed unfavorably as a show of inferiority when black women are prominently featured in a poor position in advertising.
For instance, the black lady in the racist Dove advertisement is shown to be inadequate and still lacking in critical characteristics. This image frequently denigrates women, forcing them to seek out manipulative screen presence through objectification to improve their appearance and feel valued by society (Gershon). In other cases, women stop participating in activities that need them and stop exposing themselves as much. For instance, many black women felt terrified by being shown as filthy things in this Dove racist issue. To avoid being seen, they could become more reclusive around cameras and become more active. Furthermore, it could inspire some people to get plastic surgery to objectify their bodies.
Influence of Ads on Subtle Racial Bias
This semiotic study’s primary objective is to pinpoint the impact of subtle racial prejudice in advertising. Priming elements in advertisements can occasionally lead to biasness, even while corporations successfully hide the core ideas of racial biasness (Garcia). The racist Dove campaign is a prime example, in which the company denied having any racial motivations while making it quite evident in their advertisement that they were racially discriminatory. Therefore, the impact of eliminating masking attractiveness and favorably depicting black women may be assessed to evaluate racial imagery. Experiences impact inherent bias, which can alter perceptions, conduct, and judgment (Wilson 8). Organizations must thoroughly examine the substance of their underlying material methodically using a deconstruction tool (Holes). The defining characteristic that separates white women from black women significantly impacts how race is defined today as the nation becomes more industrialized. Racist preconceptions often lead to condemnation of a black lady who appears in an advertisement. For example, a sizeable portion of the public criticized the black woman in the most recent Dove racial advertisement for agreeing to appear in the advertising. The lady in the ad defended herself, stating that she had no idea the commercial would be racially offensive.
The Dove advertisement was a textbook example of ethnic stereotyping and prejudice towards black women. The above confirms that the neutral factor that tries to cover up a negative stereotype is the critical component that best exemplifies a covert racial bias. Model roles and product categories are influenced by racial prejudice. For instance, Black models are overrepresented in sports/athletic goods commercials since they are commonly shown in those settings. The racist Dove advertisement uses comedy to normalize the stereotype of the black lady, giving the impression that the image is pleasant. However, in actuality, the main aim of such pictures is to spread prejudice and unfavorable stereotypes about black people. Subtle racist iconography has profoundly harmed and mistreated people of color.
These advertisements show one race as unclean and the other as clean. A historical story that has previously appeared in soap opera advertisements. With white and black characters, black people are often portrayed as poor, relying on historical instances where enslaved people were denied the same rights as white people due to their race and social standing. A story that may be said to be still present in the subliminal messages of Dove’s most recent advertisement (Chandler). To further feed the argument, Dove faced criticism in 2011 for implications in a commercial that seemed to depict women becoming cleaner as their skin tone lightened.
Dimensional Qualitative Research
Dimensional qualitative research (DQR) technology is desperately needed to uncover the underlying negative stereotype in racially biased advertisements and to determine the modalities that contribute most to a partial picture. DQR-based content evaluations look at the psychological aspects of advertising that are both intrinsic and extrinsic from a combination of teleological and deontological views (Helle). Through carefully crafted narratives or ad profiles that incorporate presumptions about latent phenomena, such studies can pinpoint traditionally determined manifest factors. Since they provide coder judgment impartiality, DQR-based content analyses are the most effective for identifying advertisement appeals that conceal negative visuals. DQR-based content studies are the best method for analyzing subtle negative stereotypes in advertisements for advertising experts, consumer organizations, corporate ethicists, and regulatory authorities.
Through the systematic use of a cognitive behavioral method, dimensional qualitative research seeks to improve the quality of qualitative consumer research. There is undoubtedly much to be said about the necessity for advertisers to go past the obvious and take the potential effects of their imagery into account, particularly concerning underrepresented groups of women. Customer satisfaction is vital as it enables marketers to foresee how consumers perceive their products (Harmon, Story Structure 101). One of the critical components of integrating immigrants and members of ethnic minorities is the perception of the other. Depending on how individuals regard themselves and other groups, integrating and working together in a multicultural society can be challenging or straightforward.
Mass media is a central avenue that influences how people see one another. After repeated exposure, the media’s mediated images cause viewers to change their views and attitudes. Therefore, how different demographic groups are depicted in media, especially ads, may significantly impact how those groups create their identities (Harmon, Story Structure 106). While exposure in advertisements still matters, more pertinent research would focus on how black people are depicted in these commercials. According to a study, black people’s early look is frequently disparaging. Black people are not viewed as having sufficient privilege or as being on par with white people. Although there is little indication of diversity in the commercial, the company argues that variety was supposed to be portrayed in the advertisement. The only representation of black people in the ad is as “filthy” white people.
More than that depicted in the commercial would be included in diversity. Diversity would significantly improve how the black group is viewed. The dominance of whites over blacks in the racist Dove advertisement is an example of stereotyped cultural imperialism. Advertisers could challenge this social image by portraying black people as culturally powerful and fully aware of their identity. Most black people are underrepresented, and when they appear, they tend to be men who work in service-related fields rather than managerial or professional positions. They should thus be given authority and demonstrated as crucial in visual ads (Harmon, Story Structure 103). The Dove racist commercial exemplifies the racial imbalance in magazine ads for outdoor recreational activities. Additionally, before publishing, advertising photos should be given serious study.
Advertisers must consider how consumers will react to the image of a man removing a black shirt to expose a white lady in a lighter shirt. It shows a prejudiced and racially stereotypical culture. Despite reimagining conventional black female characters in advertisements, there is still a significant problem with the depiction of black people and negative stereotyping. For many years, academics have examined how different ethnic minorities are portrayed in print and broadcast media ads compared to Whites. Minority groups have often been shown to be under or incorrectly represented in ads. For instance, commercials continue to promote stereotypical representations of races and gender, such as how women are shown as youthful, skinny, and happy and how African Americans are portrayed as aggressive and energetic. These research cautions have not stopped the creation of aggressive advertising like the one by Hornbach (Garcia). Therefore, it is crucial to analyze marketing and increase public awareness continuously.
Since most ads include visible elements owing to their effectiveness as marketing tools, assessing the visual content is one of the crucial aspects of advertising monitoring. Previous research examining advertising depended most on human labor to explore visual data. Monitoring the large volume of adverts in the modern world, swamped with digital information disseminated on social media and the web, requires minimizing such human efforts and developing an automated solution. The concepts of social justice leadership, which comprise active listening and establishing safe places for important talks about racism and race, should be adopted by organizations. Collective participatory methods are essential because they significantly reduce racial bias in advertisements and, as a result, reduce the possibility of racial imagery in ads (Helle). Minorities’ cognitive abilities are harmed considerably by racial marketing; thus, it is essential to consider their requirements while formulating ways to reduce bias.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident from the discussion above that gender and racial diversity in media-mediated pictures affect how we see certain demographic groups. Through collaborative, system-wide methods informed by effective practices, there is a critical need to create, implement, and evaluate treatments, policies, and procedures. Advertising should emphasize fostering variety in society and a good view of minorities. Racial advertisements are harmful to people’s wellness. Diversity should be considered and promoted even more by encouraging high-quality representation and ought to represent the opinions of the audience. Dove fell short in this case because it did not engage with its customers sufficiently to understand that diversity is only superficial if the stereotype of white people as neutral is upheld.
Over the last decade, versatile social media and the Internet, in general, have become extremely popular as the targets for advertisement and marketing campaigns since many users and potential customers tend to spend more time browsing the net than watching TV or reading magazines. In that way, today, the companies that pursue marketing success and attempt to attract new clients employ social media to communicate with their consumer segment and promote their brands and products.
In reality, the Internet is a field of endless opportunities for the creative advertisement campaigns because it facilitates the marketers’ connections with all types of consumers and the opportunities for the research in the consumer trends, interests, and tastes. The focus of this report is the campaign launched by Dove several years ago called Real Beauty Sketches. The campaign is known for becoming viral shortly after being released, gaining great success, and being named the most frequently viewed ad video of 2013 (Toure par. 1). The report will analyze the type of campaign, its social impacts, the media channel it relied on, its AIDA Model, and the STPD strategy.
Campaign Overview
Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches is an advertisement campaign made in the form of a short video that features a professional forensic artist who works for the FBI. Throughout the video, the artist does sketches of women based on their self-descriptions and then another series of drawings of the same women, but based on the descriptions given by the people who just met them. The final results are shown to each of the women so that they can see the difference in the way they describe themselves and the way the strangers see them.
It turns out that the portraits created based on the descriptions of the strangers are much softer, more flattering, and pleasant-looking than those drawn according to self-descriptions. In that way, the advertisement carries the core message informing the viewers that often they are very harsh and critical of themselves whereas, in reality, they are all beautiful in unique ways.
Type of Advertisement and Channels Used
The Real Beauty Sketches is a video advertisement that was placed using YouTube as the primary media channel and became viral within the first few weeks of being launched. In particular, it earned over 55 million views and was shared by many users. Dove is known for videos targeting the female audience primarily using empowering and touching messages. The Real Beauty Sketches is the fourth ad campaign of this type created by Dove.
This video, just like the other three, intended to address such issues as the social pressure on women, body image and self-esteem, artificially fixed standards of beauty, and self-perception. In 2013, Stampler stated that this video could be named one of the leading online campaigns in terms of the response of the viewers; majorly, this level of success was achieved because the video was placed simultaneously on thirty-three YouTube channels owned by Dove and translated into twenty-five languages (par. 2).
Also, the campaign was promoted using seeding based in the brick-and-mortar stores where Dove products were sold, as well as their websites and webpages. This is a clever idea to use seeding as a technique complementary to the major type of advertisement (video) that stimulates the consumers’ interest to the ad and raises their awareness of the campaign (Liu-Thompkins 59).
Phases of Consumer Behavior (AIDA Model)
The video of the campaign carries a very clear empowering and awareness-raising key. As a result, it is possible to conclude that two of the elements of the AIDA Model are pursued – attention and interest. Knowing that the campaign was developed specifically for the Internet, the marketers of Dove had to face the challenges of the online advertisement – its ubiquitous presence that makes them annoying to the users of websites so they begin to use advertisement-blocking applications or simply ignore the ads (Hinz et al. 1).
Moreover, Baltes emphasizes the importance and quality of the content selected by the companies for the marketing campaigns of their products and brands (114). To be more precise, surrounded by all types of advertisements, the contemporary users of the Internet have learned not to react to ad banners and messages. That way, the advertisement is to capture their attention and interest to become noticed and shared. This was the strategy chosen by Dove; and according to its result, the marketers were very successful.
In particular, the video under discussion uses the self-esteem boosting message for the female viewers and does it in a very touching manner so that the viewers not only become impressed by the video but also feel the need to share it with their friends. In that way, the main technique used in the video is the appeal to emotion. This technique can be opposed to the reason-based methods of persuasion (Hua 67).
In particular, the emotion that the advertisement evokes tends to be associated with the viewers with the product that is promoted. As a result, products and brands stop being the goods only but become the entities comprised of the consumers’ perceptions and ideas that determine how well they sell (Yen, Lin, and Lin 59). In the Real Beauty Sketches video, none of the featured people mention Dove or the names of any of its products, so it can be viewed as the surrogate advertisement (similar to those of liquor).
However, the video is strongly associated with the brand. The colors used in the video are mainly of cold range and typical for the Dove’s brand – white, blue, and gold; there is a lot of light, and the background music is soothing so the overall mood of the video is serene but slightly sad to portray the emotions of the women in it – quiet and pleasant surprise immediately followed by the realization that they have been too critical of themselves. The only text the video includes is its final message that says “You are more beautiful than you think” in the font traditionally used by Dove in all of its advertisements. In that way, the brand or product name does not appear anywhere in the video but yet it is associated with the brand.
Social Impacts
At the official website of Dove, there is a statement that only 11% of women all around the world can confidently admit that they consider themselves beautiful, which means that the vast majority of women are dissatisfied with the way they look and feel the pressure to look better (Dove par. 4). This statement reflects how high the social pressure on women is and how much it affects them in everyday life making them stress out over the issues that are turned into a problem artificially.
Using the advertisement videos such as The Real Beauty Sketches, Dove is attempting to raise the global society’s awareness of the problematic social trend that is harming at least 50% of humanity daily. Dove’s social impact is the provision of emotional support to women using expressing solidarity and demonstrating that they should be more open-minded and less critical of their faces and bodies because the artificially created beauty standards exist only in the fashion magazines, whereas in reality, people are capable of recognizing the diverse beauty and appreciating it.
STPD Strategy
STPD strategies are comprised of four concepts – segmentation, targeting, positioning, and differentiation. Dove’s video is oriented at the primarily female segment of the consumer base and targets women of all ages, and in particular, the ones who suffer from low self-esteem due to their appearances. Through the advertisement, the brand positions itself as accepting and embracive of all types of looks. Dove attempts to create the point of difference juxtaposing itself to all the other companies manufacturing beauty products as the one that battles the artificially established beauty standards and views its customers and unique and beautiful offering support and understanding.
Conclusion
The initial goals of The Real Beauty Sketches campaign by Dove were to appeal to the strong emotion of the female audience of all ages and offer a touching message about the uniqueness and beauty of each woman as a technique to persuade the viewers that the brand cares about their wellbeing and happiness. Goals were achieved by Dove because the video went viral very soon after being released, earned over 50 million views during the first few weeks, and then doubled this result in a couple of months. The popularity of the campaign indicates that the viewers were touched by it and wanted to share it with others.
Works Cited
Baltes, Loredana. “Content marketing – the fundamental tool of digital marketing.” Economic Sciences 8.57 (2015): 111-118. Print.
Hinz, Olver, Bernd Skiera, Christian Barrot, and Jan Becker. “Seeding Strategies for Viral Marketing: An Empirical Comparison.” Journal of Marketing (2012): 1-50. Print.
Yen, Hui Yun, Po Hsien Lin, and Rungtai Lin. “Emotional Product Design and Perceived Brand Emotion.” International Journal of Advances in Psychology 3.2 (2014): 59-65. Print.
The 3-minute advertisement of Dove launched in 2013 is a part of the company’s Real Beauty campaign. Dove is a beauty product company, a division of the FMCG giant Unilever. The advertisement named Dove Real Beauty Sketches is a video edited film of 3 minutes of an experiment that the company did. It invited a forensic sketch artist to draw the women. This artist sat is a separated space where he could not see the women (see figure 1).
The advertisement begins with a piece of soothing instrumental music. The sketch artist introduces himself. Then a female voice, presumably that of one of the participants, say that when they enter the hall, they can see someone sitting with a drafting board. Another participant informs the viewers that neither they nor the man can see each other. First, the women described themselves, and then strangers, who had been acquainted during the experiment, were asked to describe their new friends.
The result was similar in almost all cases. Women were most critical of their appearances, and others felt they were beautiful. This advertisement went viral in 2013 and has become the most viewed advertisement of the year. The ad is a part of the company’s Real Beauty campaign, which was made to develop the complete Dove brand, which makes beauty products for hair and skin. Dove makes soaps, creams, and shampoo for women. The target customers of the advertisement are, therefore, women, of varied age group.
Further, women shown in the advertisement are mostly women from the middle-class economic background, of age group varying from mid-twenties the to late fifties. The target customers are usually women who feel that they are not beautiful enough and have issues identifying themselves as good looking. The advertisement was an effort to boost the self-concept of women. The ad aimed to increase the self-esteem of the target customers. This essay analyzes this advertisement. The advertisement was shot in San Francisco (Vega). The loft where the video was taken is an open space with almost no furniture except for a sofa for the participants, a white curtain dividing the space between the artist and the participant, and a chair and easel for the sketch artist.
Figure 1: A snapshot of the advertisement with the artist one side of the curtain and a participant on the other (Vega).
Research shows emotion plays an active role in the decision-making process of consumers (Kemp, Bui and Chapa 347). Often consumers consider feeling as part of their product-purchasing phase. Positive emotions are shown at the end of the advertisement often demonstrate a positive attitude towards the ad and to the brand (Kemp, Bui, and Chapa 349). They create a form of hedonic rationalization, which mitigates the consumption of products associated with the brand. Dove’s Real Beauty Sketch advertisement aims to create an emotional association of its beauty products with the consumers, increase product recall, and the create a hedonistic rationalization process that mitigates the guilt feeling women at time feel while purchasing beauty products.
Emotion has been an integral part of all advertisements. Emotions are successful in grabbing the attention of the viewers and create interest among viewers regarding the product, which leads to the desire to acquire it (Poels and Dewitte 19). These three things lead to action. The primary aim of the advertisement by Dove was to grab the attention of consumers towards its products and associate its products with self-worth through the use of experimentation, emotional appeal, music, and white curtain.
The association is essential in understanding the effectiveness of the ad. Emotions and instant feelings evoked in the consumer play an active role in steering the judgment that viewers create about the ad, the product, and the brand. The advertisement is a mediator in explaining to the viewers that mostly women forget their physical and emotional self, and become overly critical of themselves. Such self-boosting ads create a sense of bonding among women, and a realization towards them; they are not the only one who is hard on themselves.
Mostly women feel that they are not good looking, and that is how they describe themselves. The ad very tactfully appeals to a preexisting feeling among the target group and helps to regulate the motions of the consumers. For instance, the participants are women whom Dove directly wants to target as consumers of their products. They show these women addressing themselves as less beautiful than what they are. A forensic sketch artist puts their self-description to effect. When others describe these women, they describe them as what they see in them, and their description always turned out to be more accurate and beautiful.
Then ad, in the end, captures the emotions of the women who see both the pictures and realize that what they have described themselves is highly critical. Some of them know that they are still beautiful, even if they do not want to express it to themselves. The women demonstrate heightened emotions, and the ad ends with comments of participants. Dove being a hedonic product, had appealed to the senses of women and elicited a desire in them to look after themselves. Women tend to overlook their own needs and forget themselves in the humdrum of familial responsibilities. This ad appealed to the lost urges in women to feel beautiful. This emotion is a powerful and complex emotion incited by the ad. The ad aims to associate a complicated feeling with their product.
The ad creates a greater congruence of self-concept and brand image, which may imply that the ad increased product involvement. The ad does not talk of the product, except for in the end when it adds that the ad is by Dove with the brand logo. The complete absence of the product and product appeal by participants of an experiment increases the curiosity of the viewers. Further, the suspense that is retained until the end when the two pictures are revealed creates an association of the viewer with the ad. The viewers are engaged in watching the ad. Once they learn about the outcome of the experiment, they become curious. They also try to evaluate themselves based on the result of the test. This creates an association between their boosts in self-evaluation, positive, emotion, and association with the brand, Dove.
The real beauty ad campaign of Dove aimed to break the stereotypical image of women that ads create. Earlier ads of beauty products were celebrity endorsed. The aim was to create a perfect ideal for the consumers that they could achieve by using the product. However, in this campaign, Dove wanted to show its consumers that beauty was in all women, irrespective of how they felt about themselves. The viewers of the ad would associate the advertisement with a brand that appreciates the beauty of an ordinary woman rather than a skinny, adolescent supermodel.
The models that the Dove ad showed were not professionals but regular women. Their age range was a fit for the target customer group that the ad aimed at. The ad did not promote the brand but rather incited the self-image of women that they carry. It evoked an emotion of self-confidence and boosted self-assurance.
The other props that are used in the ad are music. It begins with a high note, to catch the attention of the viewers, and then, as the sketch artist begins to introduce himself, mellows down. Music in the advertisements is an instrumental composition. Absence of words in the music does not muddle the information provided through the ad. Music has attention gaining effectiveness in ads. The high note of the music played initially in the Dove ad successfully catches the viewer’s attention. Then the mellowed music that continually plays in the background is almost inaudible, but it helps in holding the attention of the viewers. The music in the advertisement is not very loud, which has a possibility of drowning the central message of the ad.
The placement of the curtain dividing the space of the artist and the participants’ describing them is something that instantly catches one’s attention. The flowing white curtain shows a psychological and emotional barrier that women have in expressing themselves and hence ends up being overly critical of their beauty. The curtain becomes the symbol of this barrier of self and the felt-self. When the participants are shown the picture, this barrier is removed, clearing their clouded self-concept.
The ad tried to re-create the self-concept of women through experimentation, music, curtain, and emotional appeal to create an association of the brand with the real beauty that is hidden in all women. The ad has tried to appeal to the emotional concept of their target demographics, creating an appeal to look for beauty within themselves. The ad deliberately breaks through the stereotypical idea of beauty. Dove has tried to make a more believable ad. The advertisement attempts to address the fear in women to accept that they might be beautiful. This might be because of a cultural and societal pressure that ordinary women face to remain pure.
One comment at the end of the ad from a participating woman states: “I should be more grateful for my natural beauty. It impacts the choices and the friends we make, the jobs we go out for, the way we treat our children, it impacts everything.” (Dove) The comment shows that the experimentation has made the woman feel that she did not feel worthy or did not care for her natural beauty. She realized the worth of her natural beauty through the little experiment. The viewers of the ad, on the other hand, would be emotionally associated with this older woman and feel that they too are naturally beautiful.
Consequently, when they would associate a brand with their natural beauty is Dove. The ad points out that women tend to see themselves as objects that could be beautiful. They do not consider themselves important. However, the knowledge that they are impressive would make them assured in life and turn women into more confident individuals.
Works Cited
Dove. 2013 “Dove Real Beauty Sketches.” 2013. Dove Real Beauty Sketches.Web.
Kemp, Elyria, My Bui and Sindy Chapa. “The role of advertising in consumer emotion management.” International Journal of Advertising 31(2) (2012): 339-353. Print.
Poels, Karolien and Siegfried Dewitte. “How to Capture the Heart? Reviewing 20 Years of Emotion Measurement in Advertising.” Journal of Advertising Research 46(1) (2006): 18-37. Print.
