Ross Gould- Media Analysis

A Diamond in the Rough



The Dove brand has been a major player in the beauty world for years now, and yet its latest media campaign warns against that very industry. “Campaign for real beauty,” as this promotional movement is called, aims to be, or masquerades as—depending on whom you ask, a self-esteem booster for women, worldwide. Approaching their audience through a viral media operation, they have released several short commercials that have garnered millions of hits on YouTube over the course of the last couple of years. Each clip has a slightly different message, but the general theme of the campaign is that women should not subject themselves to the illusionary standards of the beauty industry. One of these commercials, entitled “Onslaught,” has been the subject of mixed feelings and reviews due to the fact that Dove’s parent company, Unilever, also markets Axe products, for example, whose ads can hardly be said to paint women in an empowering feminist manner. “Onslaught” begins with a close-up shot of an innocent looking little girl before zooming through a video-collage of media depictions of “everything from low self-esteem to plastic surgery to bulimia” (Neff). It then cuts back to the innocent little girl, but not before flashing the line “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does” across the screen. Sure, the idea of a self-esteem movement is a good one, but does a company that exhibits such hypocrisies have the ethos to be its champion? This is no simple question, with no simple answer, but this paper will argue that in spite of the obvious corporate hypocrisy, Dove’s “Onslaught” is a sizable step in the right direction for an industry that has increasingly moved towards the wrong.

The beauty industry is notorious for its unhealthy and unrealistic portrayal of women’s beauty. For years, people have been both disgusted, and simultaneously intoxicated by the images of tall, thin women with shapely figures, perfect hair, and flawless complexions. As author Anastasia Higginbotham says about teen fashion magazines, which market these images to females, they “make millions off of girls by assuming that girls need improving, and then telling girls how to make themselves prettier, cooler, and better” (Higginbotham). It’s not just the magazines that impose this ideal on women, young and old, but rather the entire industry can be characterized by its promoted notion that females need to fit a constructed standard in order to be considered beautiful. “Modern institutions of advertising, retailing, and entertainment now produce vivid notions of beauty that change from year to year, placing stress upon women to conform to the body image currently in vogue,” claimed Allan Mazur in The Journal of Sex Research, echoing this sentiment (Mazur). Clearly, if we’re debating industrial morality, one that preys on the perceptual insecurities of women can be aptly characterized as shallow and manipulative. That being said, people are getting overly engulfed in the debate over the hypocrisy of the source of “Onslaught’s” message, and not paying enough attention to the message itself.

I would be remiss in not acknowledging the duality that Unilever exhibits when simultaneously promoting self-esteem and hyper-sexualized, overly constructed beauty. It is hypocritical in no uncertain terms. A comparison could be drawn to a government preaching freedom and liberty while implementing surveillance and detention practices that border on totalitarian. The problem with focusing on that aspect of the campaign, however, is that it robs a worthy message of deserved attention. Not only that, but in a business sense, the contradicting marketing strategies of companies within a company is by no means a new occurrence. So what if Unilever owns Dove and Axe? Microsoft owns apple. Countless restaurant chains are owned by the same umbrella companies. In fact, many of our information outlets, be it television networks, internet sources, print media, etc. are owned and controlled by the same huge corporations. Competing ideas and strategies are what have driven capitalism in this country for a long time, and the corporate world has taken full advantage of this approach. “Each of Unilever’s brands has a unique personality and target,” after all (Neff ). Dove may be owned by the same company as Axe, but they are mutually exclusive brands with mutually exclusive target markets, and hence, marketing campaigns. To miss this point is to miss the point.

The point, when push comes to shove, is that “Onslaught” sends a message that is well overdue from the beauty industry. Most companies in the industry focus their ads around subliminal tactics that convince the customer that they aren’t good enough. I have seen countless women of all ages become helpless victims to beauty standards and the materialism that comes with them. It really makes me sick to witness it in people close to me. You can almost see the emptiness in their eyes as they drool over this product or that. In response, Dove has changed the rules. The image of beauty that they’re portraying now is closer to what people see in the mirror, and that is a good thing. “Onslaught,” in particular, goes a step further in aiming for the root of the problem: young women. Like most beliefs, habits, attitudes, and behaviors, beauty standards are often acquired at a young age. Children and adolescents are exposed to much of the same advertising barrage as adults due to the pervasiveness of media in today’s information age, and like tobacco companies, the beauty companies try to hook them in their developmental stages. These are the stages during which behaviors and ideals are more easily learned and accepted. That is why “Onslaught” is so righteous in its pitch. It not only markets the idea of natural beauty to its more mature audience, but it tells them to pass the idea on to their children, as well.

There is no doubt that Unilever’s perceived duplicity has consumers uneasy about accepting “Onslaught’s” message for what it is. Public controversy has already arisen and spread wildly. I have to believe, however, that the average consumer is not interested in, nor focused on, that aspect of the Dove campaign. If the public were so astute in their analysis of advertising rhetoric, then the industry itself would be far less successful than it is. Rather, I like to think that the casual observer appreciates the affirming messages they’ve seen. If a few women here and there feel better about themselves for seeing something positively human come from the beauty industry, then let the rest of us sit around and argue about the merits of corporate capitalism. What Dove has produced with “Onslaught” and the rest of their “campaign for real beauty” is a diamond in the rough, and in an industry that causes darkness in the lives of so many people, let us allow this diamond to shine.