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July 18, 2005

Real Beauty: In the Eye, Ear or Brain of the Beholder

Images are powerful marketing tools. They say alot about the marketers using them and our response to them says a lot about us as consumers, as people and as a soceity. Nowhere is this more true than in images of women.

Not that I am qualified to comment, but early today I was priviledged to join a radio discussion on WBUR in Boston on exactly these topics, sparked by Dove's ongoing campaign, the Campaign for Real Beauty. The other, much more qualified participants included:

• Dr. Nancy Etcoff, Harvard Medical School psychologist, and author of the book, Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty
• Julia Savacool, senior news editor at Marie Claire, and author of the article, One Woman, Two Messages: Does your attitude about your body influence the way other people see you?
• Kathy O'Brien, Direct of Customer Marketing at Dove
• and Jennifer Westaway as host.

It was a fascinating discussion with lots of interesting data about how women see themselves and how media imagery influences that self perception. And also about how the new Dove campaign, which uses unretouched imagery of all kinds of women who aren't models relates to those findings. Interesting call ins as well. A few who felt patronized but others who really loved the diversity.

Despite some questions about the possible cynicism of Dove, who is owned by Unilever (who also sells Slimfast), most everyone felt - including, as I posted previously, myself - that this campaign was a refreshing step in the right direction.

To listen to the full show, click here (note you will need the Real Media player).

As a quick follow-up to the show, I thought I would do my own survey of the blogsphere. Here's a summary of what I came up with:

• Bohemian Yuppie loves the realistic approach to beauty and has some good perspective on the Etcoff study
• On the other hand, Stephen Newton dissented, his wife hates the campaign and wouldn't want to be seen with Dove products for what it says about her - that she is a fat, unattractive person
• World Magazine blog, a Christian oriented site had tons of commentary almost all in support, including a comment that the Christian right should spend more time preaching postive self image than indicting others
• AdLand admired the campaign and had a good overall survey of the all the aspects of the campaign
• Noise Between Stations, like the integrated nature of the campaign, including the online customer interaction, feeling that they helped make it more genuine
• Tokyo Times, noted a recent blond wig tossing event with support
• CMO Magazine quoted Mary Lou Quinlan, CEO of Just Ask a Woman, a New York marketing consultancy saying "To say that you’re beautiful just the way you are, it’s a warm, fuzzy feeling, but does it make the cash register ring?"
• Moon Rocket felt that the in "differentiating Real Beauty from beauty depicted in traditional advertisements" the campaign became disingenuous. And that it "would have been better served had Dove made this transition in their marketing ideology without issuing numerous self-congratulatory press announcements meant to lure customers to their brand of beauty products."
• Collaboration marketing, another marketing blog, really appreciates the campaign
• The Guardian found some folks, real beauties in their own rights that felt the models aren’t flawed enough
• Dragon Fly Grrl, an LA woman's blog,
  found it really refreshing living in the land of the super model and super model wannabes
• This is What We Do Now loves it too
  
  So net, net, it is at least generating a lot of commentary and attention and - I think - a healthy discussion. And most folks are in support of it.

If it raised awareness of Dove too, I continue to call it a really good campaign

Posted by johnza at July 18, 2005 04:16 PM

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Posted by: lizriz at July 27, 2005 09:52 PM

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