Dove Hits a Home Run With Their “What Is Real Beauty?” Campaign

Twenty years ago, Nike hit a grand slam home run with their now legendary “Women’s” campaign. Today, it’s Dove’s turn with a campaign that will surely make it into the Advertising Hall of Fame.

It’s called the “What is Real Beauty?” campaign and it does exactly what the Nike “Women’s” campaign did — it delves deep into the psyche of men and women to touch a nerve so sensitive that you can’t help but take notice. In this particular spot, which can be seen by clicking here, Dove presents one of the most emotionally-charged commercials I’ve seen in a long, long time.

The difference between the Dove campaign and the Nike campaign is that Dove has done a wonderful job of using new and emerging media to communicate their message.

And just what is their message? As the father of three girls, I can tell you it’s an issue that parents all across America are concerned about — that is, the onslaught of sexually-charged images that paint a completely unrealistic picture of what it is to be a woman, a young lady or a little girl. (Have you watched MTV or VH1 lately? It’s mind-numbing.)

Dove understands this. And they’ve decided to take a stand by celebrating women of all shapes, sizes, colors, complexions and everything else. In my opinion, they’ve done an outstanding job of letting women know that Dove understands and cares about the people who buy their products.

Bravo, Dove. You’ve knocked it out of the park with this campaign. Someone needed to take a stand against the onlsaught of horrible, sexist imagery coming out of Hollywood and slathered all over TV and the Internet. You’ve done a tasteful job of taking a stand and, from the bottom of my heart, I hope your sales continue to skyrocket as a result.