Essay Rough Draft
3 inches. According to Psychology Today, this is the height difference that most men prefer in a partner. Standards are also to be on the thinner, athletic side, with some curves, long hair, and natural makeup. Society dictates what women should be and wear and look like all the time. Whether it is critiquing a person, usually a woman’s, face, body shape, skin color, height and more, not only is society our own worst critic but so are we. Luckily, beauty standards have started to shift over and have begun to fight back against this notion of being “perfect” and have instead opted for body positivity and self-love. Among the multiple campaigns all vying for a woman’s time and money, Dove is a company that has been promoting its slogan, “Beauty is for everyone.” However, in two of their campaign ads, there were conflicting messages. The “Real Beauty” Campaign, along with the ad for Dove’s VisibleCare Body Wash, promotes their slogan but in very different ways. Regardless of how the campaign and ad are carried out, their goal is the same: to emphasize their audience’s beauty and build up confidence. In Dove’s “Real Beauty” Campaign and VisibleCare Body Wash Campaign, Dove utilizes pathos, rhetorical situation, and representation to promote the body positivity and self-love market while still trying to get their customers to buy their products to attain their “natural” beauty.
The ”Real Beauty” Campaign was created to encourage women to feel beautiful. Women described themselves to a forensics artist, and then another person described the same woman. The results were that everyone’s second portrait was happier and “prettier”. This invokes pathos, making women viewing the ad feel like this could be them. Especially since the women were ordinary women, many audience members may have found a similar face. Representation and diversity are hot words of today and Dove certainly attained them by having subjects of different ethnicities and ages. Beauty and confidence are ideas that do not disappear with age, especially the feeling of insecurity and urge to fit. Personally, having an Asian woman on screen grabbed my attention the most as she was someone who looked like me. Campaigns get more attention when they make their audience feel something, and many women in the conclusion of the video were getting emotional at their second drawing, causing the audience to also possibly get emotional. Reflecting, they were more grateful for their features and believed that the way they perceived themselves had a critical impact on their happiness. This has significance as this campaign was a response to a study where a miniscule percentage of women described themselves as beautiful. Dove’s timely response to the rhetorical situation led to a possibly more effective ad than it originally would have been because this study supported the fact that more women need to feel more beautiful and confident in themselves. Dove’s strategic utilization of everyday women at the time that the ad came out was a tactical strategy for an effective ad.
Dove’s VisibleCare Body Wash Campaign on the other hand was very controversial and promoted the idea that women needed a product to feel beautiful and “clean”. This also utilized the lens of representation, having a Black, Latino, and White woman on the cover. Dove again tried to check the boxes of the hot words of representation and diversity. However, the campaign raised a few eyebrows with the positionings of the models. The Black model was under the “dirty” side, with the Latino model next and the White model under the “clean side”. The visual rhetoric here depicts three happy women, feeling “clean” from Dove’s product. Similar to the “Real Beauty” Campaign, the ad utilizes pathos since the ad attempts to get women to want to feel the way that the models are displaying. The visuals here can say a lot in a few to little words while still promoting the emotions that Dove is hoping to promote: desire to look and feel beautiful, clean, and happy like the models. However, what the ad actually indicated may be less what the company had intended it for. Dove’s misuse of representation caused a domino effect of failing to get their audience to want to feel like their models and buy their product and instead just feel confused and skeptical.
Regardless of whether the ads actually got their message through or not to their audience, there is no denying that Dove makes an attempt at knowing their audience. One of the biggest keys in having an effective campaign is having your audience feel the same way you feel or getting them to feel the way you want them to feel. In this case, Dove wanted their audience to feel beautiful and more confident. The way that they carried this out in both campaigns is very different though; the “Real Beauty” Campaign wasn’t promoting a product, just their message, while the VisibleCare Body Wash Campaign was clearly promoting a product. Not only is the body wash almost undermining the original message by indicating that women need the product to feel beautiful, but the way that Dove also severely messed up their representation makes people think twice about the brand they want to support. Indicating that all women, regardless of age or ethnicity, are beautiful in the “Real Beauty” Campaign attracted many in their audience because seeing someone like you in the media has a significant impact on the emotionality and effectiveness of the ad and emphasizes the idea that beauty is for everyone. However, indicating that women need Dove’s product to be beautiful, especially in their not-so-subtle placement of their models leads to a different emotionality and not as effective ad.
With the high percentage of women who do not feel beautiful, Dove also had an opportune moment to boost women’s morale and confidence with a well-timed ad. While the “Real Beauty” Campaign may have hit the nail right on the head, the VisibleCare Body Wash ad may have injured the audience’s morale by indicating they need a body wash to be clean and beautiful, that they need to use this product to be happy. Understandably, they are trying to promote a product, but by implicating that people should use it to feel good, they are undermining their own message of feeling good in your own skin. Reflecting on how the ads make someone feel, the “Real Beauty” Campaign has a feel-good, wholesome message of accepting who you are, embracing it even. The VisibleCare Body Wash ad instead makes women reflect on their natural state and question are they “clean”, and therefore beautiful, possibly targeting some women’s insecurities. One ad’s utilization of their audience’s pathos led to a sweet message, while the other led to feelings of self-doubt or skepticism.
Dove is a well-known brand that is seen in every CVS or grocery store. As a company that plays into the beauty market, they understandably have constructed ads and campaigns to promote beauty and confidence in their consumers. However, when appealing to an audience with a wide variety of women with different viewpoints on themselves and their beauty, there has to be a strategic way to empathize with the audience, comfort them, and make them feel good. Dove’s “Real Beauty” Campaign strategically created an ad that spoke to many women about their not feeling alone in feeling insecure, or not beautiful, and promoted the idea of a woman’s natural beauty. The VisibleCare Body Wash ad used all of the same strategies, but in a more questionable way that led to a less effective message and promotion of their product. It is tricky to promote all of the right messages with such a diverse audience, but companies like Dove will keep creating ads that possibly check all of the key boxes to having an effective message.
For the speech, this is my general outline:
Start with beauty spending statistics as a hook
Transition it into background of the “Real Beauty” Campaign
Utilize pathos, representation, and rhetorical situation -> Survey came out that “only 2% of women around the world would describe themselves as beautiful”, as well as the current atmosphere with COVID and beauty
Emphasize impact on us as college students/active consumers
Conclude with goal and thank you
I really enjoyed your speech, I loved how you emphasized some of the points with raised volume and hand gestures. It was very eye-opening and drew me in with each of the points you made. I liked that I could tell the outline of your essay and it was easy to follow.
Kacie’s comment was:
Your speech was great! Even though it was through a computer, you were able to connect with the audience by maintaining eye contact with the camera and speaking at a steady pace. The message behind the advertisement and your speech are something that many people need to hear. Well done!