Dove 'Self-Esteem Project' advertising campaign
Dove started the 'Dove Self-Esteem Project' in order to promote and sell their products whilst hopefully inspiring body confidence in women around the world. Dove cleverly used cross-platform advertising to create numerous adverts to promote the value of self-esteem, body confidence and happiness to millions of women of all ages and encourage the population to buy their products.
Whilst on the surface, the message which Dove meant to convey seemed to be presented effectively and decoded by the target audience (women of all ages) considerably well, however the adverts used meant some audiences decoded the message in a different way leading to many questions and criticism arising. The way some adverts were presented and worded caused issues and people interpreted the message in the opposite way than intended. For example one advert (pictured below) caused issues as the wording used made it seem as if Dove was suggesting you can either be 'grey' or 'gorgeous', rather than being both- bestowing negative ideas and messages onto there audience.
People began criticising the campaign, as not only did the wording of some adverts cause issues, but also the main images. Many people thought the advert featured too many traditionally attractive white women, and wasn't very diverse in either ethnicity or body shape- this further helped define in audiences' minds the idea that in order to be considered 'beautiful' you have to be thin and white, demoting the idea of body happiness. The campaign also implies that beauty is measurable, and that there is a standard of beauty. The campaign can be seen as suggesting that individual beauty should be measured to an universal standard and forgets that everyone has an individual perception on beauty.
Although, Dove managed to convey their message and get people to by their products, they could have done better in presenting their message in a way that perhaps would not create as much criticism as the self-esteem project has gotten.
References
Griner, D. (2013). 5 Reasons Why Some Critics Are Hating on Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches Video. Available: http://www.adweek.com/creativity/5-reasons-why-some-critics-are-hating-doves-real-beauty-sketches-video-148772/. Last accessed 13th October 2017
Well done Tegan, this is a fantastic start and I am really impressed. Please follow the essay guide on the blog to add structure to your work. Areas for improvement: you could have touched more on what cross platform advertising is, highlighting the many mediums along with the pros and cons as an introduction. Overall, your writing skills are really good and your use of referencing shows you understood the writing skills session, keep up the good work
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