Zeena Al Taher's Blog

I have watched a short video that is a part of Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign. Even though I do now really purchase Dove products, I found this video quite empowering, and also a very powerful promotional technique.

The video revolves around the notion of women’s self-doubt and hatred towards their physical appearance. In the video a trained FBI forensic artist sits behind a curtain and draws a portrait from the self-descriptions of the subject sitting on the other side of the curtain. This results in skewed caricature-esque sketches. However, the artist then draws a second portrait of the women using the description of a stranger that they were asked to befriend earlier which resulted in softer, more realistic portraits.

The video reflects the idea that women obsess over what they perceive as flaws other than their true beauty.

Dove has provided a significant change in redefining the standards of advertising after they created the campaign. I believe that it was a very successful approach and a relatable issue that clearly emphasises the life-changing message that Dove is trying to promote.

“You are more beautiful than you think”

Here’s the link to the video in case you haven’t seen it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XpaOjMXyJGk

The media has become an ever more powerful force in shaping the world’s perception of itself. Individuals are struggling to maintain a unique identity and self-understanding apart from media influence.

I will focus mostly on the female representations in advertisements. The media presentation of the celebrity body as an object of desire and a tool to attract views and customers.  The media also portrays celebrities’ bodies as attractive, desirable and “good”; whereas bodies that do not meet these physical standards are consciously or maybe unconsciously viewed as “bad” or “ugly”. I have posted a number of Hardies’ advertisements that will perfectly reflect that.

The media sets that, for women, “desirable” physical characteristics include being thin, long legged, slim-hipped and large breasted.

I view this as an unethical and more of an unrealistic and harmful technique that causes both physical and psychological effects. For instance, eating disorders including anorexia, bulimia, over- exercising, excessive dieting and over-anxiety over food.

By focusing intensely on the physical aspect, our society risks losing sight of the fuller sense od what people are. Don’t you agree?

Here are the links!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jczfu_hxpq4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBGzcx_7xLk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNBdU0PwWKU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1krJqn3smbI

After our Comm101 classes as well as other classes, such as Comm292, I came to realize that a company’s reputation is of critical importance as it might add to the strengths and weaknesses of a company. I decided to share this surprising article about 6 very well known global companies that have a somewhat bad reputation.

What truly surprised me after reading this is how these companies, that have worked extremely hard to place themselves in the positions they are in, allow for such mistakes and errors to occur. When i first think of these names I cannot but think highly of them believing they are in a way perfectly managed, supervised and trained specifically to prevent such incidences. However, after reading this article i learned otherwise and i think you would too.

Here’s the link! http://www.siliconindia.com/news/business/6-Successful-Companies-with-Bad-Reputations-nid-147052-cid-3.html