An Analysis of the Dove Beauty Sketches Campaign

While I was watching television, I came across an advertisement called the “Dove Beauty Sketches Campaign.” While the televised commercial was an abridged version of a longer video that has been distributed online, it possessed all of the elements of the full commercials online. The 2013 Beauty Sketches Campaign consists of a commercial segment where a group of featured women discusses their physical insecurities and their difficulties feeling beautiful. In the commercial, they are asked to draw a self-portrait, which is then later compared to a picture of the women that is later drawn by an FBI-trained sketch artist. In the commercial, the findings of this survey are explored when the women realize the pictures they drew of themselves were far more critical of their appearance than the picture that the FBI sketch artist drew. I found more information about the controversy surrounding the advertisement in the journal Marketing. In her article “Drawing Conclusions,” Carly Lewis surveys the opinions of professionals and journalists who believe that the ad campaign sends the wrong message about beauty. According to counter-opinions, the campaign asserts that many of the features that were “corrected” by the FBI artist’s sketch should not be associated with unattractiveness, such as signs of aging or being overweight (Lewis 9). I found this advertisement to be interesting because while the intentions were good, I agree with the critics that it does send a counterproductive message to females.

From a theoretical perspective, the controversy surrounding the Dove Beauty Sketches Campaign is not surprising. In the campaign, several of the participating women complain that they feel they are overweight. One woman claimed that she feels her face was not thin enough and another claimed that she was simply overweight. Rather than standing by the belief that this is just fine, the campaign solicits the service of a man who confirms the worth of the women by making them thinner in the sketches that he draws. So why can’t even a well-intentioned commercial shatter the notion that women should be thin in order to be satisfied? As Susan Bordo notes, television commercials systemically promote the belief that women should strive to lose weight (Bordo 139). In this sense, Bordo views the unchallenged notion that women must be thin as an ideology that has been spread by advertisers (139). Further, advertisers have been accustomed to promoting the virtues of the thin female through placing a taboo on images of women eating or engaging in other indulgences that could cause them to put on weight (139). From the perspective of Bordo, the marketers who developed ad campaign are merely reflecting an ideology that is ingrained in their industry.

Angela McRobbie also provides a useful theoretical lens by discussing the impact that post-feminism has upon culture. In order to change the systemic emphasis on female perfection in the advertising industry, the systems that normalize these appeals must be identified and challenged. However, McRobbie notes that post-feminism silences female objectors by claiming that they have achieved equity with men and requiring women to remain silent when it comes to inequity (McRobbie 9). The consequence of post-feminism is that the “good intentions” of focusing upon women’s issues in the Dove campaign must be applauded, but attempts to critique the advertisement or point out its dangers to the self-esteem of women might be viewed as “ungrateful” or mere “nitpicking.”

The Dove Real Beauty Sketches Campaign is a demonstration of the challenges that women face in shifting the paradigm on female beauty in advertisement. Even while the campaign attempts to alter negative attitudes regarding female beauty, it upholds many of the conventions that have ruled advertisements for decades. The belief that women should be thin and concerned with their attractiveness is an unspoken ideology that is systemically implemented in the advertising industry. Yet, because post-feminist thought hinders the ability of women to openly challenge these systems, it becomes difficult to prevent the production of advertisements that present antiquated messages about female beauty.

Works Cited

Bordo, Susan. “Hunger as Ideology.” Readings in Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. 6th ed. Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. Boston, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. 138-174. Print.

Dove shows real beauty in clever sketches campaign. (2013). B & T Weekly, Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com

Lewis, Carly. "Drawing Conclusions." Marketing 118.6 (2013): 8-9. ProQuest. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.

McRobbie, Angela. “Notes on Postfeminism and Popular Culture: Bridget Jones and the New Gender Regime.” Readings in All About the Girl: Culture, Power, and Identity. Ed. Anita Harris. New York: Routledge, 2004. 3-15. Print.