Dove -Real Beauty

Dove Real Beauty

Dove real beauty is a worldwide campaign which was launched in 2004; this campaign includes advertisements, videos, workshops, and sleep over events. The campaign was shot by John Rankin Waddell the fashion/portrait photographer.

The purpose of Dove Real Beauty campaign is to represent the real beauty of women which was distorted by the media; the media displays fake images of celebrities and women who look nothing as their real images, however Dove managed to run a campaign which is against the wills of the media, this campaign was to show the beautiful women found all around the world with different color, shape, and size. The media only shows one type of females found in the world “the beautifully fit women,” this stereotyping of women had a huge effect over the years in many females’ lives as it caused many issues such as diseases, lack of self confidence and many other disorders done by the media.

The real beauty campaign made a difference in the world as this campaign showed real beauty of all women, the advertisements that were made had images of women of different age varieties.

When the campaign started in the year of 2004 they first established advertisements which had pictures of women who are not like the women we see daily on advertisements with perfect hair and astonishing features, instead they placed pictures of real women, women who are not skinny, women with flaws, an average working other, an old lady and many other women that the media is trying to cover by their advertisements, those ads had questions for the viewer such as ‘wrinkled? Beautiful?” the viewers had the choice of answering the option they think is right. In the year 2006 the campaign made progress as skinny models where banned from Spain’s fashion runways, this was the start of the revolution in the media.

Later on after the Dove Real Beauty campaign got stronger they wanted to help the teenagers and women who were destroyed by the media and have low self-esteem because of the constant display of “perfect” women, Dove established “The Dove Self-Esteem Foundation” this was a foundation which showed those women that real beauty is not what they see in television and in magazines but beauty comes within, they also tried inspiring the girls about accepting how they look and helping them gain their self confidence back. The Dove Real Beauty Campaign continued until the year 2011, throughout the 7 year process The Dove Campaign made a difference in the world, the females started gaining back their self-confidence, they became more confident about going out in public and dressing like any other normal female without being shy or despising the shapes of their body.  

The Dove campaign was supported by many people from around the world due to its success and the motivation it gave to the other women which the media abandons, advertisements for the campaign where published worldwide for example: Europe, Middle East, America and Africa. During the beginning of the campaign people thought it was another profitable campaign that was done by the majority, later on the campaign had accomplished huge success as the people started seeing the advertisements of what is actually being done and they became a part of it as the females who are not usually exposed by the media were shown worldwide with their actual looks showing real beauty which was not “Photo-Shopped.” After reading several reviews that where done by women I realized that it was a lovely experience for them because they have overcome their fears and managed to stand up for other women rights and they showed the world something valuable which cannot be hidden which is called “real beauty.”   

On the other hand some articles had criticized the campaign addressing the company that they “photo-shopped” those women in order to look “fat but attractive” and they’re using those images in order to sell products, also another article stated that the advertisements that were made where not real as the women who were part of this campaign did not perform any of the activities that were mentioned in the advertisements and the description of this campaign,  however the criticism did not affect the campaign as it kept going accomplishing success and raising motivation in the other women who do not have it.

In my perspective I believe that The Dove Real Beauty Campaign is a winning campaign no matter what the companies’ purposes are because they are portraying what real women are meant to look like by trying to help them gain their self confidence back, and they are helping women come out of their shells and embrace the beauty they have been given, unlike other organizations where they only portray their definition of ‘perfection’ and eliminate what is shown to be average or under the limit of perfection.