Teema Sawas

Professor Christen
First Year Writing
January 24, 2016

Doves #SpeakBeautiful Campaign

Advertising is ubiquitous, directly and indirectly. It is a form of

communication that allows for a message or purpose to be spread to a
certain audience. If utilized appropriately, advertisements are an influential
tool. They have the ability to induce the reader to think, believe and
consequently act a certain way. Since advertisements communicate
exclusive messages or stories, the audience must initially understand
advertisement through analyzing it comprehensively. This can be done
through the production of the advert, purpose, the target audience, the
characters, the verbal text and forms of communication.

Todays society and and social media represent women in an approach that
shed extreme light on skewed perception of beauty. The perpetual
stereotypical mythologies of being impossibly tall, white and thin that
women see in advertising are mounting resulting in women identifying
themselves in a negative manner. Dove, however, defies these myths, and
through their array of campaigns, they fortify the notion that beauty is more

than merely appearance. Their definition of beauty can be seen through

diversity, aging, and curves. Dove is a renowned brand personal care brand
and has placed a significant footstep in the social media world since starting
their campaign for real beauty in 20041. It intents to be "an agent of change
to educate and inspire girls on a wider definition of beauty and to make them
feel more confident about themselves"2. Ever since I can remember, Dove
adverts have enticed me to feel comfortable in my skin because the brands
rooted origin is having the ability to make women feel strong and beautiful
through a short clip, using their rudimentary commodity product, a soap.
Because of their connecting messages to their audience, Ive decided to
analyse their #SpeakBeautiful campaign and the utilization of social media.

The campaign chosen to be analyze is the #SpeakBeautiful advert, in which

Dove has collaborated with Twitter to make social media a more cordial
outlet for women, where they can express their feelings about their image in
a more positive approach. This ad is founded around one alarming statistic,
in 2014, there were more than 5 million negative tweets about beauty and
body image entered by women.

Dove has adapted its advertisement campaign to reach its female audience
of all ages by utilizing real life situation to educate women on the true
meaning of beauty and confidence. Dove has positioned itself chiefly towards
1
2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dove_(toiletries)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dove_(toiletries)

women, especially women who perceive themselves as undervalued. Thus they focus
their products on women who use beauty products to feel better and look better. The
target market can be reinforced using the text incorporated in the video, Last year
women sent over 5 million negative tweets about beauty and body image.
This advert reaches a wide audience, as the perception of beauty and its
negative association is conventional and reaches a sprawling scope of
audience.

Advertising a product usually acquires one aim, selling products. However,

even though Dove is trying reaching out to their audience to buy their
products to make them feel and look better, they simultaneously commit to
make women appreciate their true beauty, and feel confident about their
natural identity and beauty. With many women perceiving themselves in a
negative way, the exigency for change is needed, and through Doves
#SpeakBeautiful Campaign they aim to achieve this. This ad is aimed to help
change the way this generation as well as the future perceive themselves.
The utilization of the hashtag #SpeakBeautiful is meant to encourage
positive body image on social media as well as request women to reflect the
power that one single social media post has. The #SpeakBeautiful campaign
uses technology to identify negative tweets about beauty and body image.
Accordingly, Dove would flag those negative tweets and respond with a
positive note from experts.

The Dove Beauty Campaign uses rhetorical elements such as pathos, and
ethos in order to market Dove Beauty Products to women of all ages. Since
Doves establishment as a personal care brand, and not a beauty brand, they
are able to dig deep into the rhetorical element of ethos. Their note to others
is to love oneself. And through this ad, Dove is able to present its audience
with saddening facts about how people view themselves. This is however an
indirect marketing practice used to allude consumers to buy their products. It
employed Twitters illustrious prominence to propel its status of a loyal brand
to make its market feel comfortable with their natural beauty and body
image.

Grasping the context of this advertisement is central to fully hold on to

knowing how pathos plays a vital function in this rhetorical situation. This
brief but enthralling commercial uses Twitter to broaden Doves consumer
and rhetorical audience, to grasp the audience with a persuasive amount of
pathos to shift adverse associations away from its merchandises, and to
promote its brand by aligning Dove with the creation of a confidence and
self-esteem. Opening with a real life events of how women feel about
themselves and how they perceive others, I HATE MY BODY, I have so
much cellulite its DISGUSTING, She is SO UGLY, the advert proximately
forms its pathetic appeal, as those hurtful comments emotionally absorbs

the audience. Dove uses these tweets as an unspoken technique deployed to

embellish the impact of the message they want to convey.

This advert targets the viewers emotional appeals through numerous

approaches. In order to achieve a clear message to the female audience and
to specifically focus on them, the brand has employed minimal color,
pending down to its theme colour, blue and white. Doves use of blue
lettering and text alludes to their theme color. However, it can also be linked
to the feeling of tranquility and calmness, and remind the audience that this
is what their products provides. The extensive use of white can embody the
the truth behind their product and their simple mission to help the female
market feel more confident and beautiful. This campaign features the
domino-effect of self-abusive comments on Twitter, while ultimately affirming
that it only takes one positive Tweet to start a new trend. In order to draw
focus on inner beauty, the ad doesnt include any female figures. This is to
reinforce the idea that beauty comes from within. The commercials use of
pathos allows Dove to stretch its audience to not only females with self
doubt expressed on social media, but to all genders facing the fear of not
living up to a certain myth of beauty, that is truthfully unrealistic. The brand
adopts tranquil music in the background to create a sentimental, as well as
nostalgic tone in order to attract the audience going through the same
experience and create longingly remembering that women should stop selfharm and start perceive themselves as beautiful. Directly following the

demonstrative ad, Dove pivots and places its logo, alongside twitters, and
the newly spawned slogan A partnership for social change. This strategic
placement alludes the consolidation of Dove and Twitter to create a platform
where negative comments no longer subsist, as well as causing the audience
to subjectively associate Dove as the means to achieving their perpetual
craving for beauty.

This advertisement is a strategic model of Dove prevailing on social media

without using their product to appeal to their target market. Thus, their core
task is to help women stop following the conventional misconception of
beauty, and to stop abusing and self-abusing through social media. Even
though its behind doors, its still as much hurtful. Even though this is what
they aim to do, it is important to note and analyze how this advertisement is
to get women to buy their products. They want women to embrace their
inner beauty by buying their products. Creating this advert achieved a
paramount status, initiating a platform associated with Twitter to broaden the
definition of beauty. With how women perceive themselves and others with a
negative outlook, this poses restrictions on the definition of beauty and
consequently the combination of both these companies will help eliminate or
minimize this setback in todays world.