Conscientious Marketing and PR Blog

What is fact and what is fiction?

In June 2005, Dove kicked off the second phase of the Campaign for Real Beauty with advertising featuring six real women with real bodies and real curves. These real women were not professional models and vary in size and shape. The result is a dialog between Dove and its consumers about the definition of beauty. But before Unilever committed to the controversial campaign, it secured evidence that the majority of their consumers would relate to it. “The real truth about beauty,” a global research report commissioned by Dove, reported that only two percent of women worldwide describe themselves as beautiful. Dove has now gained market share in all of its five major beauty categories, from bar soap, body wash, hair care to deodorant. The Campaign for Real Beauty accounted for almost one fifth of all advertising spend in 2004, despite the campaign only running from September that year.

Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty has caught the attention of women across Europe and has plugged the brand firmly into the trend away from stereotypes of female beauty and towards cosmetics and toiletries intended to enhance real women’s natural attributes. Dove released a thought-provoking mini-film, ,”Dove evolution” that got almost 5.5 million views on YouTube. The video, which lasts only one minute and fourteen seconds, is a photography view of how a plain-looking model becomes a sexy billboard face, thanks to an army of make-up artists and doctoring on Photoshop. The video, which ends with the comment, “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted,” is part of Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, which includes advertising, websites, billboards, real-world events and a charitable Self-Esteem Fund, according to Kathy O’Brien, Dove’s marketing director. The campaign video has been successful in “starting a dialogue about beauty that Dove is a part of,” says Berger. “It’s about more than hawking soap.” The Dove evolution advertisement become very known a couple of years ago. I have awful lot of respect for Dove and their campaign for “real beauty”, take a minute to watch their video, it is amassing. “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted”.

Dove Evolution video

Dove have been tough, and have won a lot on being so. The Dove “Revolution”, changed advertising

As an answer to the Dove video, I came across this very funny “Slob Evolution” video on YouTube. This video sends a clear message “no one wants to look at ugly people”. Look at this.

The Slob Evolution video

Skittles launches an amazing social media campaign. Skittles have turned their homepage as a social media site. Yes, paste Skittles.com into your web browser and, after you fill in your birthday, then a Facebook or Twitter page shows. Skittles is also linked to You tube, you can share your thoughts and meaning about the product via chat rooms or just using Facebook.

All PR is good PR? It is new thinking and is an incredible big move for Skittles, they are making history within marketing and PR. It was Econsultancy that started the combination of social networks together with their web page, Skittles just did it better. The Econsultancy started it with everybody that displayed the word “Econsultanct” on their tweets.

Skittles commercial

Is this the next big thing? The firms that already did it have got huge publisity, but they do not have control over their own homepage anymore, and this could be a problem for them regarding bad publisity. Are they digging their own grave? This could result in a huge PR problem.