Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” campaign, one of their most recent, also happens to be one of their most effective and unique strategies to date. The ad creatively shows women everywhere that their beauty is far greater than what they believe it to be and others view them as far more attractive than what they view themselves. However, the storybook ending isn’t necessarily as glamorous as it is portrayed.

Figure 1: Florence, star of Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches”

Bloomberg has released an article revealing many hidden components of this campaign that Dove didn’t intend on making public. Although this ad was referred to as an “experiment,” that is not really the case. Extensive research was conducted in order to choose women who would most likely produce the results they were after. On top of that the sketch artist was aware of the campaign and new its intentions before he began sketching thus greatly swaying the results of his interpretations.

Figure 2: Sketch Artist Gil Zamora

Is this unethical? Many women and Dove customers will agree that it is based on the level of deception used in the advertisement. The creators would most likely hold a different position as there is no explicit untruthfulness in the ad. I believe the real matter at hand is to what degree we will allow such narrowed framing to shape are perceptions and ideas before we disregard such campaigns for their blatant misrepresentations.

Bloomberg Article link:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-26/dove-s-fake-new-real-beauty-ads.html