In Defence of Dove

You might have noticed there has been a lot of discussion all over the internet about Dove's latest "natural beauty" campaign. In case you've missed it, here is the video that everyone has been talking about.

I've seen a lot of quite justified criticism of this campaign around - first and foremost is the point that Dove is owned by Unilever who own...well, just about everything. But in particular, they own Lynx/Axe, who's marketing campaigns are about as diametrically opposite Dove's as is possible. For all their talk about "natural" beauty in the Dove campaigns, Unilever also own Ponds, who are well known for shilling whitening cream in markets like India, promising wealth and happiness if you can make your natural skin look more Western. Nestled under the same corporate umbrella we also have Weight Watchers, and frankly my problems with THAT company could fill an entire article on its own. The point is that Dove keep some very suspect corporate company, and a lot of people have been rightfully pointing this out.




To my mind however, corporate hypocrisy is nothing surprising - and more to the point, I don't think it's particularly relevant to discussion of this particular campaign. All the brands under the Unilever umbrella will have their own, independent marketing teams. They don't get together and discuss overarching sociological messages that Unilever are sending out. Every department will be putting together campaigns based on what they think will make people buy the product they are selling. It's really as simple as that - Dove only cares about your self esteem if you feeling good about yourself makes you buy more soap.

While I think the revelation that a corporation the size of Unilever owns all sorts of conflicting products is no revelation at all, I do think the fact this campaign was funded by a big corporation IS interesting. Unilever have little to no track record of attempting to market to women by making them feel good about themselves. Even the "natural beauty" campaign for Dove has been pretty patchy in its very short lifespan. For every pictorial featuring non typical (but still quite aesthetically pleasing) models, there has been ads telling us our underarms aren't beautiful enough. There has always been the underlying (and sometimes blatant) message that the women shown in the previous ads were only naturally beautiful because they use Dove products, which is a hell of a caveat. Anyone can be beautiful - IF you use our products. I didn't see any of that in this video though, and I think that marks a radical departure that has been largely overlooked. The idea of selling things to women by making them feel good about themselves is a revolutionary one. For the entire history of advertising, the overwhelming majority of ads pitched at women have been designed to make us feel bad about ourselves in order to sell us things.

You're too skinny! Our product will fix that!

You're too smelly! Our product will fix that.

I find it really fascinating that someone in the Dove marketing department has decided to try something so different. I for one am encouraged that the conversation about female self esteem is finally loud enough to permeate the marketing world bubble. It's a sign that what we're saying is being heard - Dove wouldn't use this issue if they didn't think it was something consumers cared about. Yes, it's true that the perception of beauty they are selling is still very narrow compared to the actual spectrum of beauty out there. But it's still wider than it could be. It's a start, a tiny baby step in a more positive direction. Yes, they are absolutely cashing in on the conversation about women's self esteem to sell soap - but that's the marketing department's job. There are plenty of advertisers happy to continue to prey on women's perception that they aren't good enough, and it still works. But I think this video is an encouraging indicator of where advertising could go. While we are still a capitalist society, companies will always be trying to sell us things, and I would much rather they used campaigns like this, as imperfect as it is, than campaigns like the one below.

Image courtesy of Dr. Nerdlove

The other criticism I've seen leveled at this campaign is that it encourages women to value being beautiful above all other things. On the surface, I do agree with this criticism. It's certainly true that women should feel they have value for things other than being ornamental, and I strongly support the idea of making women aware that being attractive isn't all they have to offer. However, I don't know about you but I know that while I'm aware I'm smart, and witty (on the internet) and an excellent problem solver, I also still value feeling beautiful. It's not the ONLY thing I value, but it is important to me. To suggest that women SHOULDN'T care about being beautiful is all very well and good, but the fact is that a lot of women DO care. I, for one, can't help it. I like feeling pretty, and when I feel pretty it makes me feel good about myself. It's not the ONLY thing that makes me feel good about myself, but it's certainly a factor. I suppose being invested in my attractiveness isn't the most enlightened or academic stance, but that's just how it is for me.

If we can't totally erase women's invested interest in feeling beautiful (and I don't think we can or should) I think encouraging women to examine the way they see themselves, and understand that their internal image is almost certainly not how they look objectively is a really positive thing. I think it encourages more women to try this Jedi mind trick where we attempt to genuinely see ourselves from the outside, because in my experience it can be absolutely revolutionary for your self esteem. The Boy and I have occasionally played a game where I point out a random stranger that I think is the same shape as me, and then he says whether he agrees or disagrees, before pointing out one that looks like me through his eyes. The strangers we choose are always WILDLY different, and while a lot of this can be accounted for by the fact The Boy is dreadful at eyeballing sizes, it certainly shows that my perception of myself is also very suspect.

I also think that while women SHOULDN'T be getting this message from a company trying to sell them soap, the fact is that this campaign will reach people that The Female Eunuch won't. It's true that there is a ton of amazing, insightful writing on this subject out there, from an amazing array of brilliant writers.  But not everyone who could benefit from it is going to read it - not because it's not any good, or because it's not important, or because these women are less intelligent, but because it can be simply too hard at the end of the day. I have a bunch of really great books on my shelf that I really should get around to reading, but I don't see it happening any time soon, because I come home from work too exhausted for anything heavy. And that's just from full time work and blogging in between! While reading up on feminist literature can be really enlightening, I can imagine that if I added kids or someone I was caring for into that equation, I would reject pretty much anything over a paragraph with a resounding "Fuck all of this." This video is a direct, simple way of saying to female viewers, "Hey, just take a minute to consider that your internal image might not be accurate." This can be enough to really shake someone's perception of themselves - I saw a touching piece here about how this ad reduced the author to tears, with this simple message.


I don't think that kind of positive impact can be erased by the shady dealings of the corporation behind it, or the fact that it is essentially an ad for soap and skin care products. While it's not perfect, and there are certainly problems that should be pointed out, I also think that a lot of the criticism against this ad is coming from an academic high horse. Women shouldn't value themselves according to how beautiful they perceive themselves to be - but they often do. Women shouldn't be getting their feminist dialogue from a company selling skin cream - but some of them do. And if this ad makes women happier with themselves, then hell, I think it's worth supporting.

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