Dove #CHOOSEBEAUTIFUL campaign

Dove have always been at hand to challenge personal image issues through their renowned campaigning, but when their latest global study revealed that 96% of women wouldn’t choose “beautiful” as a word to describe themselves, they decided to develop a social experiment to make these women’s perceptions of themselves visually apparent.

Two signs were placed above doorways to shopping centres across the globe – one reading “beautiful” and the other reading “average”. The experiment unfolded when women simply decided which door to walk through, with the majority walking through the “average” door. “Women make thousands of choices each day — related to their careers, their families, and, let’s not forget, themselves,” the company said. “Feeling beautiful is one of those choices that women should feel empowered to make for themselves, every day.”

Some of these women were then confronted about their decision with one woman from San Francisco contemplating, “Am I choosing because of what is constantly being bombarded at me?  Because of what I’m being told?” The campaign effectively tugs at the heartstrings when the self-doubting ladies challenge their insights and build upon their confidence issues. “I think the ‘beautiful’ door is completely open for me” one lady recognises. Dove captured the whole affair with the campaign now reaching over 6 million views on Youtube. Ad Age has named it the greatest ad campaign of the 21^st century.

“Dove Choose Beautiful urges women to embrace this personal choice, because when we do, it unlocks happiness and confidence that impacts women’s self-esteem. Women in the World is an influential forum where we hope women will join us in inspiring one another to reconsider the choices we make about our beauty and self-esteem so that we may all reach our full potential in life,” explained Jennifer Brenner, Dove’s director of marketing.

It appears that Dove is on a mission to build the nation’s confidence. Back in 2013, their Real Beauty Sketches campaign explored a similar concept complete with the strapline “You’re more beautiful than you think” as well as last year’s “dove patches”, which saw participants keeping a two week video diary whilst wearing a “beauty patch” that claimed to transform perceptions of beauty and promote confidence. When women realised the patch was in fact a placebo, they could finally appreciate that beauty is a state of mind.

 Emily Harris