Dove’s long history of problematic advertising campaigns received a new generation to the dynasty last week with a commercial featuring a social experiment that forced women to classify themselves as either ?“beautiful” or “average.”
At the entrance of what appears to be a shopping mall or public space, Dove constructs two doorways: one labeled “Beautiful” and the other labeled “Average.” Anyone — though the commercial focuses on women — who needs to enter the space is then confronted with the choice to select the adjective that describes their appearance by walking through the entrance with that word.
Women from around the world, most of whom choose the “Average” door, are then interviewed about their choices. “It was a bit confronting actually, to be honest,” states one participant’s voice-over. “To see these big signs and feeling like you had to choose and be self-conscious of how you perceive yourself and perhaps if it lines up with how the rest of the world perceives you.”
Firstly, investing in whether or not one’s opinion of oneself “lines up with how the rest of the world perceives you” fundamentally undermines the theme of appreciating one’s own individual, unique beauty the commercial seeks to spread. If Dove truly wants us all to be more holistically happy and healthy, it would be far more productive to deconstruct the idea that beauty matters at all. Where’s the commercial reminding us that our conceptions of attractiveness are deeply flawed and irrelevant?
Secondly, what makes this particular strategy so laughably hypocritical is that one cannot ignore the contextual conflict of interest for Dove, a company that profits by feeding our insecurities so we will continue to need their extensive collection of products designed to correct and improve cosmetic or aesthetic flaws. The last thing Dove wants is for us to feel more holistically happy and healthy; if we all love ourselves, who would need ?anti-cellulite cream?
Thankfully, another reminder of the corrupt nature of advertising and conflicts of interest played out on the online stage shortly after the commercial’s release.
Arabelle Sicardi, a Buzzfeed author, created a post explicitly delineating and criticizing the campaign’s fallacies. It was online for less than a day before Buzzfeed realized Dove advertises on its site and deleted it with the explanation: “We pulled this post because it is the author’s personal opinion and is not consistent with the tone of BuzzFeed Life.”
Within a few days, and presumably after strong backlash, Sicardi’s post reappeared on Buzzfeed after it remembered its site is devoted to personal opinions, regardless of who advertises there: “This post was inappropriately deleted amid an ongoing conversation about how and when to publish personal opinion pieces on BuzzFeed. The deletion was in violation of our editorial standards and the post has been reinstated.”
At this point, problematic “real beauty” campaigns are standard procedure for Dove. As long as we remain vigilant as to their true motivations, we can dodge the pitfalls of erroneous aesthetic gimmicks and wash our faces with generic soap in ?self-confident peace.
sbkissel@indiana.edu
