On April 14, 2013, Dove took a big step along its path to changing women’s perceptions of themselves. In 2006, Dove began its crusade against the beauty industry with the much hyped short titled Dove Evolution. I want to explain why the Real Beauty Sketches campaign is better.
How brand meanings are born
First, let’s all be honest for a moment. Dove does what it does to sell more soap. Dove’s owner Unilever sells Axe, which objectifies women in every imaginable way. A brand manager’s job, therefore, is to find a message that resonates with a target consumer segment, is unique and defensible.
For decades, Dove had pitched that it made your skin softer – a message easily lost in a crowded marketplace where everyone talks about the attributes or features of a product. Through research, the Dove team discovered that few women described themselves as beautiful.
Dove took that consumer insight and decided to stop advertising features and benefits and focus instead on a deeper meaning. In other words, Dove should stand for a point of view.
The difference between Dove Evolution and Real Beauty Sketches
With Dove Evolution, the brand exposed what goes on when creating an ad. The focus is on media’s misrepresentation of reality. In case you haven’t seen the ad recently, watch it below.
The new Real Beauty Sketches ad is fundamentally different. The new ad focuses on women’s perceptions of themselves.
Do you see the difference and how powerful it is?
The first ad focuses on the beauty industry but the second ad focuses on women (i.e. the people who buy the product). It seems so simple and yet, it’s amazing to me that it has taken Dove seven years to start talking about and to the women to whom they market.
The original consumer insight was that women do not describe themselves as beautiful. Yet, Dove launched a campaign attacking the beauty industry. It’s only now that Dove is saying, “You are beautiful.”
And I, for one, love it despite being long overdue!
Watch the ad below (and watch it again even if you’ve seen it already).