Dove's final marketing campaign offers with shallowness and closely edited selfies
Unilever-owned Dove has renewed its fight against unrealistic standards of beauty with a new campaign highlighting the damage caused by heavily edited selfies on social media.
The focus of the campaign is a 60-second film by Benito Montorio, called reverse selfie. The brand says it is a continuation of their hugely successful Evolution advertising campaign from 2006, which highlighted the impossible ideals of beauty in advertising and the media.
Reverse Selfie was created by Ogilvy and begins with a young woman posting a photo of herself on social media. The film is then played in reverse order, with the woman undoing the changes and staging used to create the picture to show that it is not a woman behind the picture at all, but a young girl, who is just a teenager.
"At the time of Evolution was published, the beauty industry was seen as the most damaging to women's self-esteem. Since then, the world has moved on and now selfie apps and social media pressure are the biggest threats." says Daniel Fisher, global ECD for Unilever at Ogilvy and WPP. “Not enough people are talking about the problem, but hopefully this campaign will change that. As a father of two young daughters, I really hope it can make a difference. "
The focus of the campaign is on reversing the harm social media continues to do to young women and girls. A number of photo posters were created along with the film, shot by Sophie Harris-Taylor. Each girl is shown with her natural face split with the heavily edited version to reveal the stark realities of these apps.
After over a year of experiencing a pandemic and on screens for many young people, the campaign is calling for action rather than awareness. For this reason, Dove also offers a Social Media Confidence Kit, one version for parents and another for teachers. The kit encourages parents and teachers to have “selfie talk” with the young people in their lives, which is just as important to them as discussions about puberty, consent and sex.
"Now that social media has become part of our everyday lives, digital distortion is happening more than ever, and tools that were once only available to professionals are now available to young girls at the push of a button without regulation, ”said Dove's Executive Vice President Alessandro Manfredi. "Girls around the world have felt the pressure to change and distort their looks to create something 'perfect' that cannot be achieved in real life."
Dove is hoping to start a movement to build trust with the hashtag #NoDigitalDistortion and will serve ads around the world for TV, print, digital and social.
Credits:
Agency: Ogilvy
ECD: Daniel Fisher
Creative Director: Juliana Paracencio
Director: Benito Montorio
DoP: Steve Annis
Production company: Independent
VFX: Absolutely
Photographer: Sophie Harris-Tyler