Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

When Dove commissioned the groundbreaking study, The Real Truth About Asian Beauty, the renowned brand knew it was never going to be easy, especially when it was essentially addressing a definition which had already shaped perceptions and created a stereotype across the globe. But Dove’s simple brand mission to make more women feel more beautiful everyday was powerfully upheld when the campaign took off in continents around the world, reaffirming what Dove had always stood for: simplicity and honesty. 

Undertaken by independent research company, Research International, the Study explored the relationship women across Asiahad with beauty. Specifically, Dove’s mission was to determine how comfortable women were with using the word “beautiful” to describe themselves, how they defined beauty, their level of satisfaction with their own beauty, its impact on their sense of well-being and how important it was for them to be beautiful. 

Complementing previous work in North Americaand Europe, The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty (CFRB) in Malaysiaand Singaporewas the Pan-Asian effort that acted as a starting point for social change, to stimulate discussion and debate while acting as a trigger to broaden society’s definition of beauty. In facilitating this goal, the Malaysian campaign launch in September 2006 comprised an expert panel chosen based on their credentials and expertise in their respective fields of work, which had links to various aspects of beauty and stereotypes. 

Dove’s vision for this powerful campaign is that a new definition of beauty will emerge, not one definition of beauty and not someone else’s definition, but one that encourages women to embrace their own real beauty. The findings in the Study were just the beginning, though, with the hope that it would further question and probe the definition of beauty across Malaysia, Singaporeand beyond. 

“We wanted to invite women (and men) to participate in a discussion about beauty and what defined beauty in today’s modern world,” says Supattra Paopiamsap, Unilever’s Home and Personal Care Division Marketing Director. “Dove wanted the study to assess whether it was possible to talk and think about female beauty in ways that were more authentic, satisfying and empowering. To do this, Dove first needed insights by talking to the very women at the heart of this campaign.” 

For this reason, the study had comprised in-depth interviews with 2,100 women, aged 15-45 years from 10 countries including China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Philippines, Thailandand Vietnam. 

So what did women really think about beauty and how was it defined in society and the role it has within popular culture? From the results, it was clear that the definition of beauty needed to be broadened. The Study found that while Asian women largely felt that beautiful women had greater opportunities in life, few would describe themselves as beautiful. When asked how they would choose to describe themselves, nearly a third chose ‘simple or natural’ followed by ‘average or normal”. But fewer than 5% of Malaysian women said ‘Beautiful’.

While it may be true that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, the aim of the CFRB was to help open society’s eyes to the global diversity of beauty and the limitless permutations of femininity that constitute female attractiveness.

Supporting the Campaign for Real Beauty was a pan-Asian communications programme, launched in June 2005 and rolled out across eleven countries.   The campaign questioned whether “stereotype model” attributes such as large eyes, youthfulness, slimness, long hair and flawless skin were required to be beautiful — or is there more to it than this?  

To illustrate the programme further, Dove launched the visually-driven Tick-Box Campaign, to challenge the narrow definition of beauty and to visually show that real women of all ages, types, shapes and sizes can be truly beautiful. The tick-box essentially showed key beauty issues affecting women today, such as body shape, grey hair, breasts size and single eyelids. Each ad presented an image of a woman whose appearance differed from the stereotypical physical ideal and asked the reader to judge the woman’s looks by voting or ticking a box. Interactive billboards were also displayed in strategic locations to encourage both women and men to vote on the women and their beauty traits featured in the campaign.

From its products to everything they do as a beauty brand, Dove continues to be dedicated to helping women feel more beautiful everyday.   The study is just a part of its continuing efforts to better understand how women view beauty, so that they could fulfill the mission even more successfully. Ultimately, Dove believes in every woman’s personal beauty and recognises that, as a beauty brand, its actions and words can have a direct impact on how women feel about themselves, their beauty and self-esteem. The findings also allowed Dove to share what it believed in, why it was a brand and why it marketed itself as a particular brand, why it made the products it made. 

Dove’s campaign reinforces the fact that the ambition of a brand is not just about increasing sales. However, ambitions cannot be separated. The key is finding the right balance and staying true to its values. On one hand, the brand needs to continue to grow; on the other, it wants to realize its goal of broadening the definition of beauty. Dove believes that these two objectives can live very well together. This is part of Dove’s playing field, and they have indeed won with their customers.