A brand which incorporates value in society attracts consumers. Dove, a brand known for promoting values like natural beauty, confidence and positive characteristics recently released a campaign video in contradiction of these values. Prior, Dove’s Self Esteem Campaign had positively reached out to 20 million young people across the globe. The Dove Self Esteem Project specifically stated that everyone deserves “to reach their full potential”, yet due to “low body confidence and anxieties over appearance” many do not reach this potential. From a consumer perspective, the Dove Campaign motivated me to embrace exactly who I am meant to be. Their video of a model with no makeup transforming into a covergirl demonstrated how media harmfully enhances and distorts individuals; this unattainable portrayal of beauty intensifies insecurities in viewers own appearances. The most impactful advertisement for me consisted of young girls describing what they each wished they could look like. The shorter girls wanted to be taller and the darker skinned girls wanted lighter coloured skin. This add portrayed how society has convinced girls to want to look a certain way instead of how they were born.
On October 10, 2017 Dove released a clip on their company’s facebook page which was completely contradictory to everything the Self Esteem project had originally campaigned. The add showed a black woman removing her shirt to unravel a white woman underneath. This specific add is reminiscent of soap advertisements from “the 19th century that showed black people scrubbing their skin to become white” (Reuters 2017).
After researching Dove’s marketing strategies, I was appalled to discover similar previous ads. During 2011, three women were placed side by side, one with darker skin under the heading “before” and two white women under the heading “after”; a portrayal of what occurs before and after using their product, suggesting whiter skin is preferred. Is Dove hiding racism behind all of their self-esteem boosting confidence campaigns? What is Dove really expressing through their value proposition to the customer segment? Dove had no valid explanation of the outfall, “an image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully. We deeply regret the offense it caused”
Dove’s differences and points of parity are what makes the company stand out from the rest of soap companies. It’s value system has beneficially separated itself from other companies in the past, but will this recently released clip plummet the brand popularity? Elon Musk an entrepreneur stated, “Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But ‘brand’ is simply the collective impression some have about a product”. My impression of the Dove brand has certainly changed.
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