Dove’s ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’ is 20 years old this year, but still feels as fresh as ever. Back in 2004, the brand broke with convention by featuring ‘real women’ – of all shapes, sizes and skin colours – instead of homogenous models in its ads. It was a move that genuinely resonated with audiences all over the world.
“It was the first of its kind,” recalled one woman fondly, in a new film marking the campaign’s anniversary. “I remember being really encouraged,” said another.
But this is no brand love-in. It’s anything but. Greenpeace – which produced the short – isn’t usually one to pile praise on mega-corporations like Unilever, and certainly doesn’t break with convention in Toxic Influence: The Dark Side of Dove (YouTube, available now).
Because after watching the old ads, the gathered mum and daughter pairs – it’s surely no accident they all looked like they could star in a Dove ad themselves – watched scenes of young women surrounded by piled plastic waste and environmental destruction.
They then learned that “Dove’s owner Unilever is one of the biggest plastic polluters in the world”.
The message was what you’d expect from Greenpeace. But the delivery was devastatingly different and effective.
First a bit of massaging of the Dove marketing team’s ego, before the bait and switch into searing criticism.
And the Gogglebox format of watching ‘real women’ change their entire perspective on a brand they previously held dear made it easy for audiences to do the same.
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