In the last post, I introduced you all to the magazine project I completed last spring, full of advertising critiques written by moi. The second of the critiques is on Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" - a new advertising campaign that exploded into a worldwide movement for women of all sizes, shapes, races and religions to love themselves just the way they are - REAL.
Enjoy :) Suzy
Campaign for Real Beauty
By: Susan Mosejczuk
Why is Dove's Campaign for beauty REAL?
Just like a human's life, there comes a time in a company's existence that they are faced with what I like to refer to as a mid-life corporate crisis. Brilliant ideas for marketing and advertising may produce solid results one decade, and have the adverse affect the next. In order to succeed on the competitive playing field, a company must revamp their strategies to reflect current trends - rebirth in a sense. And in 2004, that is exactly what the Dove company did.
With increased competition in the cosmetic and beauty industry, Dove had to take their advertising into full gear. What was previously simple advertisements for lotion now became an entire campaign tackling issues of self-esteem and identity. Dove’s Campaign for REAL Beauty saw immediate results with its launch and was much more than an advertising campaign; it became a movement.
The purpose of Dove’s campaign is multifaceted. First, the campaign itself was launched in order to compete effectively and to increase sales for the Dove line of beauty products. But in doing so, an entire movement of being “comfortable in your own skin” developed. The campaign aimed to reach out to REAL women everywhere and ultimately give them the message that if you use Dove, you can love yourself just the way you are and embrace your flaws. Dove’s diverse agenda of objectives for advertising also included wanting to create a discussion about the true meaning of beauty and increase awareness worldwide. Alongside this, the Dove campaign’s purpose was to not only create a debate about beauty, but to motivate women to voice their opinion on the matter.
Each print advertisement features a different REAL model struggling with her own body image issue. In the four print advertisements featured, the ad itself is simple but the meaning is compelling. The first woman is an older black woman who is coming into her old age through winkles. The second advertisement is a young Asian woman with a pixie haircut who has probably been called a boy one too many times. The third advertisement features a young white female who is overweight but won’t let that get in her way. And lastly, an Asian woman is shown with a face full of freckles rather than the flawless porcelain skin that you would expect from her ethnic background. The depiction in the series of print advertisements is meant to speak to woman of all races, ages, and sizes and does so effectively. If Dove had only portrayed one type of woman with a specific flaw, the campaign would not be nearly as effective. There is no room for discrimination as every body flaw and type of woman is highlighted throughout the campaign. Furthermore, the purpose of the Dove campaign is not only to sell products and cultivate a strong brand meaning, but to increase self-esteem in women and shy away from the notion that super stick thin is in.
REAL audience vs. REAL market
Launching a worldwide marketing campaign that re-branded and repositioned their entire line of products saw an immediate response, and a positive one at that. The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty featured your everyday REAL woman with REAL flaws. Rather than casting stick thin supermodels for the face of their campaign, Dove turned to the streets, literally. Real women were approached in both London and New York and discovered over the internet, and soon enough, a new brand was born.
Curvy women with wide hips and large busts were just the start of the campaign. Overnight success lead Dove to take their new idea and push more limits. At the end of their launch, the campaign targeted nearly every single type of woman – larger, older, more wrinkled, and more REAL.
The print series of advertising for Dove runs in magazine publications worldwide, both in your typical Seventeen magazine for the younger, more trendy female reader. Print ads are also found in magazines catered to the smart sophisticated 20-something woman in Cosmopolitan or Vogue and continues onto the pages of O! magazine, Women’s World, and other ‘mom mags’. The audience is widespread within the female sex; women from about age 15 until their late 60’s are being exposed to Dove’s innovative approach for advertising. To conduct research in the developing stages of the campaign, Dove commissioned the REAL Truth about Beauty study to explore what beauty means to women today. Dove themselves claimed their audience to be “all women, all ages, and of all sizes”.
Although the exposure of the print advertising campaign is limited to females, it certainly does not discriminate against the type of woman. The target audience contains all women, and the target market is widespread as well, but a bit more specific. According to the Dove REAL Truth about Beauty study, the target market resulted from the statistics.
The Dove Campaign for REAL Beauty, through their print advertisements, is aimed at the line of firming body products. Although exposure and audience for the product is all women, the target market for this product is women between ages 18 and 64. The participants in the study fit that age range and the study showed – only 2% of these women described themselves as “beautiful”, 75% of women rated their beauty as “average”, and 50% of women indicated their weight was “too high”.
The four advertisements featured diversify the target market. “Wrinkled? Wonderful?” features a black woman in her 90s with wrinkles, while “Oversized? Outstanding” features a plus-sized Caucasian woman in her 30’s. The other two advertisements feature young Asian women, but each facing a different self-esteem issue. Based on these four specific ads, the target market is women of all races and ages, facing four different problems – aging, obesity, skin appearance, and gender stereotypes. The first advertisement is for the older women aged 50 to 90 of any race who is battling the natural effects of aging. The second advertisement is for a women aged 20 to 35 who is brave and bold and is not afraid to take risks with anything from her personal life, to a hair cut. This women struggles with gender identity stereotypes since we live in a world where there is a very defined image of what you are supposed to look like as a man and a woman. The third ad is aimed at the 20 to 40 year old woman who is ridiculed every day of her life for being overweight. And lastly, the fourth print advertisement is marketed at the young biracial female who is not the cookie cutter mold of what she is “supposed” to look like, in this case an Asian woman with freckles is unheard of in our society.
The profile of the target market is for women who acknowledge their flaws and either have begun to embrace them, or are looking for the support to do so. It is for your everyday average middle-class woman who abandons social stereotypes and is not vain and materialistic, but rather independent and selfless.
REAL life meaning
So is Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty real? And is it really effective? YES! Within six months of the campaign launch, sales of Dove’s firming products increased 700 percent in Europe. In the United States, sales for products featured in the print advertisements increased 600 percent in the first two months. The Campaign for Real Beauty has been more than effective and global sales exceeded the $1 billion mark in 2004, the same year the campaign was launched. However, although the sales figures alone are an incredible testament to why the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is effective, there is much more to it than just dollar signs.
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is effective because it has a real life meaning behind it unlike most advertising gimmicks. The company repositioned itself and rebranded in order to become more issue-oriented rather than just a company trying to push a product onto a consumer. The campaign is effective because it contains all four components of an affective response. Wants, emotions, liking, and resonance are all portrayed through the Dove print advertisements. It creates a desire for the Dove product because it shows how using the product will enhance a woman’s life. It affects feelings because it speaks out to woman about a delicate topic of body image, self-esteem, and happiness. It conveys liking because the use of real women builds a positive feeling about the brand, unlike when advertisements use stereotypical tall and thin models
that create hostility. And lastly, the Dove Campaign for
Real Beauty creates resonance and allows the audience
to identify with the brand on a personal level.
Aside from all the obvious aspects of the print advertisements that deem it effective, why not ask
REAL women
what they really think? The following page shows the responses of 5 different women from the United States, where the campaign was initially launched. All five women identified with the advertisements and expressed in what ways it was effective to them. Not only does these five women believe the Dove Campaign for
REAL
Beauty is effective, but so do the millions of women who contributed to the explosion of sales generated from the campaign. And most importantly, the advertising campaign effected me as well.
The innovative print advertisements are effective to me because of the aesthetic components. All print advertisements feature a different woman, but all of them use the same colors, fonts, and layout, which make it easily identifiable by audience members who have seen an advertisement prior. Also, the advertisement is setup in the form of question, asking the reader to form their own opinion. The use of the boxes to check off that resemble a test or exam, catches the reader’s attention because it is unique. Also, because the advertisement contains all questions, it makes the reader feel more connected to the ad because it is asking her what she thinks.
Overall, the Dove Campaign for REAL beauty is really effective. In terms of increasing sales, cultivating a strong brand meaning, stimulating a debate on beauty, and the actual presentation of the print advertisements all come together to form one very effective and unbreakable advertising campaign. So if you haven’t already, take Dove’s advice and embrace the REAL women in you.
REAL women respond
"I love them. Absolutely. I literally don't know anyone who looks like a model -- all my friends and family look like these [Dove] models. Their bodies are really being celebrated rather than hidden."
Linda Effinger, 44, USA
"I think they showcase real women and help with self-esteem for all women. For people who are product switchers, this would be an effective tool. [The ad] definitely stands out."
Eileen Tan, 28, USA
“I like the ad because I'm a real woman and I think I have great curves. It's nice to see advertising that represents the majority of real women who have meat on their bones. I love it!"
Bridget Schank, 28, USA
"It grabs people's attention. It's more realistic because it's real women using these products -- it's not anorexic robots using them. It would get me to buy [the product]. It's definitely a positive thing."
Sandra Karac, 21, USA
"I think they're pretty cool to see. One thing that's important is not to lose sight that skinny women can also be natural. Women of all sizes need to embrace women of all sizes. I think they're really beautiful ads.“
Kelley Rutherford, 27, USA
No comments:
Post a Comment