Subscribe to my Feed
« Why did it take Fox News so long to apologize to Canada? | Home | Here’s a Rx to stay out of court »
Kudos to Dove for its Campaign for Real Beauty
By Lauren | March 26, 2009
If you’re half as sick of the whole financial mess as I am, you’re probably eager to hear about a company that’s doing good in the world. It’s important to celebrate the companies that walk the ethical talk, so today I want to congratulate the Dove Company (yes, the folks who make the personal care products) for blowing the lid off some popular misconceptions about beauty with its “Campaign for Real Beauty.”
It’s no secret that the fashion, beauty and advertising industries have come together over the past few decades to create and popularize a particular beauty ideal: imagine a swizzle stick with foot-long lashes, artificially bronzed skin, a perpetually windblown mop of hair, kamikaze nails and teeth that look like well-glazed sugar cubes. Even professional models don’t really look “like that” until they’ve been worked over for hours by a small army of stylists, then digitally edited, airbrushed and distorted into “perfection.” The whole thing would be laughable if women of all ages (and, at this point, little girls as young as four and five) weren’t starving, carving, tanning, bleaching, and otherwise torturing themselves in an effort to live up to an anatomically impossible ideal.
So Dove launched its “Self-Esteem Project” for young girls, conducting workshops and offering training materials to help mothers persuade their daughters that eating disorders aren’t the path to beauty. The Dove Web site also offers articles, interactive features, quizzes, and several short videos that are dynamite teaching tools. My own favorite, “Evolution,” graphically depicts the process that transforms a pretty model into a digitized caricature. A child could understand it - here’s hoping lots of children do.
And Dove’s philosophy extends to its marketing. Instead of depicting airbrushed mannequins selling “hope in a bottle,” Dove uses real women as models and, according to the company’s Web site, “strives to realistically portray women by accurately depicting their shape, size, skin color and age.” In other words, Dove’s ads are honest - how many cosmetic companies can say the same?
Dove executives undoubtedly hope to sell a lot of products with the company’s counter-culture approach, and I hope they succeed. There’s nothing wrong with doing well by doing good. Here’s hoping that women who value Dove’s commitment to their emotional well-being (and to the emotional health of their sisters, daughters, and grand-daughters) put their money where their hearts are.
Topics: Business Ethics, Lauren Recommends, business communications, corporate responsibility, customer relations, ethics |
March 29th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I’m pretty happy with how Dove has marketed Realy Beauty in my country as well! I think it takes guts and sincerity to choose such an honest way of promoting itself.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:18 am
With no doubt, I am as sick of the whole financial crisis as you are. News on the minimal progress (or not) of acts to help revive the economy is getting on my nerves and I am glad that you brought up the actions of a company that walked the ethical path. Dove’s self-esteem fund, Campaign for Real Beauty, definitely injected a positive note into the business realm. I agree perfectly to your description of a particular beauty ideal, “a swizzle stick with foot-long lashes, artificially bronzed skin, a perpetually windblown mop of hair, kamikaze nails and teeth that look like well-glazed sugar cubes. Even professional models don’t really look ‘like that’ until they’ve been worked over for hours by a small army of stylists, then digitally edited, airbrushed and distorted into ‘perfection’.” Dove made a bold move to free ladies out of beauty stereotypes and promoted the idea to embrace all definitions of beauty.
In fact, adding on to your encouraging discussion as well as relating to a recent post on my blog about the inattention to ethics and social responsibility in many MBA programs, I would like to bring up evidence on the escalating awareness society has on corporate social responsibility issues. A growing phenomenon known as the “ethics pledge” had drawn society’s notice on the subject. The Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility originally from Bentley University, Massachusetts, advocates the idea “to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job one consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which one works.” The organization provides materials and resources to teach students how to set up on-campus campaigns and helps students navigate tough choices that might come across during their careers, while keeping in mind commitments to ethics and social responsibility. More than a hundred schools and colleges are using the pledge.
Another pledge which is catered to business leaders, the Business Ethics Pledge, founded by Shel Horowitz, begins with “I pledge allegiance, in my heart and soul, to the concepts of honesty, integrity, and quality in business.” It allows leaders to sign electronically and advertise their businesses online by making the ethical vow. The pledge was established based on the belief that “businesses are more likely to succeed when they base themselves in ethics—in honesty, integrity and quality.” It is about changing the world and creating a climate where businesses are expected to behave ethically, and the fact that executives who try to drag their companies into the unethical swamplands will find that nobody is willing to carry out their orders. Of course, these ethics pledges are not and will not be the cure to economic turmoil. However, by encouraging pledge of allegiance to change the culture of doing business may not be such a bad idea. Just like Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, it has to start somewhere.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Hi Victoria,
Nice of you to write in! And yes, I’m a big fan of the ethics pledge. Shel Horowitz is a friend of mine, so I’m delighted that you appreciate his work.
Best,
Laruen