For the past years, Dove has become the creator of inspiring women empowerment campaigns that tug at our heartstrings and makes us re-think the way we define beauty. Never mind that their male counterpart, Axe, has been promoting a different message – using a woman’s sexual appeal to sell to their testosterone-laden audience. But Unilever wants us to see past that and focus on Dove’s beauty campaigns instead.
So for today, let’s focus on the message and not the brand.
The newest in their beauty campaign series, the Choose Beautiful short film highlighted five international cities – Sao Paulo, Hong Kong, Delhi, San Francisco, and Shanghai. Women shoppers were presented two doors, labeled “Beautiful” and “Average.” While there were some women who opted to use the Beautiful door, the video showed a handful of women passing through the Average door without any hesitation. There was even one who, upon seeing the doors, turned around and went the other way, opting not to pass through the doors and pass judgment on herself.
While we see nothing wrong with not allowing companies to tell us if we’re beautiful or not, we believe that any gesture that helps women claim the right to call themselves Beautiful is a good thing.
“It was a bit confronting, actually, to be honest. To see these big signs and feeling like you have to choose and be self-conscious of how you perceive yourself and perhaps if it lines up with how the rest of the world perceives you.”
Should you wait and listen while the people around you tell you what they perceive of you or do you just march on that Beautiful door and tell them what you perceive of yourself?
“Beautiful for me… It’s too far away out of reach.”
There has been so much around the world that has led to women believing they are simply of Average beauty, that they don’t even deserve the to be called Beautiful. Just a quick peek at today’s magazines can tell you that if you aren’t thin (which they have re-labeled as “healthy”) and with clear skin (which they have also, come to think of it, re-labeled as “healthy-looking skin”), you’re not worthy of being called a beauty.
Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s not dependent on the color of your skin, the number on the weighing scale you keep in the bathroom, or the people who you choose to love.
“Beautiful is a great word, so why not see what’s on the other side of that?”
Watch the video here:
