17190: On Shiftiness In Beauty Standards.

Advertising Age published content on Adland’s alleged shift in beauty standards, presenting a plethora of pouting, pissing, and pontificating.

 

Sorry, but there has been no shift—contrary to the performative propaganda from brands like Dove and Always.

 

Eurocentric beauty standards continue to dominate—along with the discriminating creators of such mirrors, models, and measures.

 

Saying anything otherwise is White noise.

 

Inside advertising’s shift in beauty standards—body positivity backtrack and the rise of AI models

 

By Adrianne Pasquarelli

 

Every August, Cindy Gallop pages through the September issue of Vogue—long considered the fashion bible—and posts her reactions in real-time on X. In the past, the diversity, equity and inclusion advocate and industry consultant has used the hashtag #CarefullyCalibratedDiversity to reference brands’ overly obvious attempts to check the DEI box regarding size and ethnic diversity. But this year, she expects marketers to abandon even that façade.

 

“Permission has now been given to abandon any pretense, or superficial attempt at diversity,” said Gallop, the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld and MakeLoveNotPorn. “It’s not only that you are free to abandon all pretense of diversity—it would now actively advantage you to go in the complete opposite direction as right now there is a huge audience celebrating tradwives, celebrating ballerina farm, celebrating womanhood as blonde-haired and blue-eyed, sorority rush.”

 

Recent marketing, such as American Eagle’s controversial Sydney Sweeney campaign and Guess’ use of an AI-created fashion model, demonstrates a shift by brands away from the body positivity movement of the last few years. As more companies backtrack on DEI initiatives, they appear also to be shying away from the physical inclusivity of plus-size models—instead, they are promoting body stereotypes.

 

Experts point to causes such as the digital pressure from social media to be thin, as well as the growing usage of GLP-1 drugs such as Wegovy. Meanwhile, those brands that are still embracing diversity have little to say about it at a time when the public is eager to voice its outcry.

 

“In general, society is swinging back from body positivity and body acceptance into one focused more on fitness and being stereotypically hot like Sydney Sweeney,” said Kyla Noni Brathwaite, assistant professor in communication and media at the University of Michigan. “We are seeing that in advertising as well.”

 

The shift marks a departure from the more realistic body types brands such as Athleta, Old Navy and even American Eagle-owned Aerie had been embracing in their advertising. That work appeared driven in part by celebrities with different body types such as Lizzo and the Kardashians, noted Yalda T. Uhls, the founder and CEO of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA.

 

“But we all have grown up, older generations and younger generations, internalizing these images that we think we really should have, so it’s very easy to reset back to thinking that’s better than someone who has a regular body or is a little bit overweight,” she said.

 

Some brands are quietly size-diverse

 

Few brands are willing to discuss the body diversity landscape, even those marketers that are still featuring size-diverse models. For example, Abercrombie & Fitch’s denim campaign released late last month includes a variety of body types and skin tones. A recent Instagram post from the brand attracted more than 6,220 likes and prompted comments such as “Thank GOD Abercrombie isn’t cutting out their plus size models/clothing-one of the few major brands doing what’s right.”

 

Similarly, the Gap, which has regained relevancy in recent years, regularly uses diverse models in its ads, including by body type and age. Earlier this year, the clothier won acclaim for a campaign featuring 56-year-old actress Parker Posey.

 

Both Abercrombie and the Gap declined to comment for this story.

 

Another marketer, activewear brand Sweaty Betty, debuted a body-positive campaign “Wear The Damn Shorts” in May, following research the brand conducted that found 67% of women say body image negatively affects their self-esteem.

 

“Our Wear The Damn Shorts campaign is all about trying to help women feel uplifted and confident in their own skin,” a Sweaty Betty spokeswoman wrote via email. But she declined to comment further about the campaign and the issue of body diversity in the advertising landscape.

 

When Guess used AI to create its blonde-haired, flawlessly complexioned model for a fashion spread in Vogue last month, many consumers were aghast. Shortly after the Sweeney “genetics” campaign, the move reignited the debate over body inclusivity, artificial beauty and the future of real human models.

 

Guess did not return requests for comment.

 

Two years ago, Levi’s faced backlash when it announced it would be using artificial intelligence to incorporate more diversity in its models, prompting consumers to question why the brand wasn’t simply hiring more models of color. In response, Levi’s appeared to backtrack and confirmed its focus on live models and photo shoots. The brand’s latest year-long campaign features Beyoncé and includes products from the singer.

 

Gallop called replacing models with AI “ridiculous” and noted the hypocrisy.

“It’s ironic that brands all say that people value authenticity—it’s true, people do value authenticity,” she said. “So if you want to build emotional connections with your consumers, you do that through what you create and you do that through having people in your ads that your target audience can relate to.”

 

Gen Z values authenticity

 

Brands using AI models risk backlash from Gen Z, a group that is fast-growing in buying power and influence. Gen Zers are widely known to value authenticity from brands, especially in ads. Unlike older generations, the cohort is also tuned in to marketing in particular, often calling out the discipline by name on social media, for example, something writer Emily Sundberg recently referenced in her business newsletter “Feed Me.”

 

“Gen Z are media literate and can spot a box-ticking ad from a mile off,” said Audrey Birner, U.S. insights director at Beano Brain, a specialist agency that focuses on generational trends. She noted that the group is “fluent” in the language of marketing because they’ve been marketed to since birth on various platforms. “They’re not looking for performative inclusion, they want authenticity.”

 

The growing adoption of GLP-1 drugs is adding to the pressure for perfection in ads, experts say. For example, Brathwaite noted that the widespread availability of such medications, and their use by prominent celebrity figures, have made it more acceptable to change your body to be thin. In addition, social media tips on getting skinny or the latest workout or diets have created more of a focus on stereotypical bodies.

 

“Specifically with TikTok, I’m always observing new trends in terms of how bodies should look—this is how women should look or act or be, this is the new workout you should try,” Brathwaite said.

 

But overall, more than two-thirds of U.S. women are plus-size, and it might be in brands’ best interest to court such majorities at a time when bottom lines are under economic pressure. Gallop noted the disconnect between the ultra-thin consumer brands they think will want their clothes and the real person who will actually pay for them.

 

“They will not [pay] if they do not feel an emotional connection with you and they do not feel that you want to sell to them,” she said. “Any brand with guts should be looking at the American Eagle debacle and saying, ‘How can we be the opposite of that?’”

16764: Dove’s Attempt To Be Real Ballsy Not A Real Beauty.

 

The Edelman creative team responsible for this Dove Men+Care concept should be kicked in the balls. 

 

16701: When Doves Fly…

  

Adweek reported the Dove Global Chief Marketing Officer is ending a 28-year run at Unilever. Admittedly did not know (or care) that a key “architect” of the Dove Real Beauty campaign is a White man—who partnered with a White advertising agency likely led by White men to produce patronizingly propagandistic poop intended to revise women’s beauty standards. Unbelievable. Or not.

16663: Dove Real Screwy Media Plan.

 

Here’s an advertorial from the recently spotlighted Dove Real Beauty propaganda taking an anti-AI stance, pontificating for the kind of beauty Unilever wants AI to learn. Right.

 

What makes the preachy platform so ridiculous? The advertorial is running in beauty and fashion publications like Vogue, where the magazine content and advertisements nearly exclusively present supermodel standards—and presumably successfully, as such publishers and advertisers appear to maintain their global popularity.

 

It’s clear proof that Dove and Unilever have failed in their self-absorbed, delusional, and hypocritical ambitions to redefine beauty.

16611: AI Proves Dove’s Real Beauty Is Real Bullshit…?

Advertising Age spotlighted a new performative promotion from the Dove Real Beauty campaign—a video titled, “The Code.”

 

Now the Unilever brand is pledging to never use AI in its advertising. Given the surging interest in AI, the stunt seems like an opportunistic declaration—and unnecessarily redundant, as the self-absorbed campaign is supposedly rooted in portraying “real” women.

 

BTW, the video—created by Sao Paulo-based Soko—features a woman in the opening that appears to be model-quality talent. The video is also most focused on romancing the AI image of a White woman.

 

Dove boasts that adding “Dove Real Beauty” to AI prompts for beautiful women leads to images from its campaign. Duh. Such extraordinary bullshit.

 

If Dove’s long-standing grandstanding had even minimal effect on global culture, why would AI’s perception of beauty automatically maintain the Eurocentric standards that Dove has allegedly sought to counteract for decades?

 

“The Code” ultimately proves that the 20-year-old Dove Real Beauty campaign has utterly failed to achieve its propagandistic goal.

 

For Dove, AI stands for Absolute Insincerity.

 

Dove pledges not to use AI to portray real people in its ads

 

Anti-AI stance comes as the Dove Real Beauty campaign marks 20 years

 

By Phoebe Bain

 

For Dove, real beauty means no artificial intelligence. In the newest campaign for its long-running Real Beauty platform, the Unilever brand pledges to never use AI in its advertising to portray real people, while introducing a prompt that will yield more realistic body representations for people who do use AI to search for beauty images.

 

The skin care and hair care brand’s new “Real Beauty Prompt Guidelines” provide instructions for creating images using generative AI programs that are representative of “real beauty.” The effort comes as Dove celebrates the 20th year of the iconic campaign.

 

“Pledging to never use AI in our communications is just one step. We will not stop until beauty is a source of happiness, not anxiety, for every woman and girl,” Dove Chief Marketing Officer Alessandro Manfredi said in a recent email to Ad Age.

 

A new ad called “The Code” intends to shed light on AI’s impact on beauty standards. The video begins by showing what AI comes up with when prompted to create images of “the most beautiful woman in the world” (she’s blonde, thin and white), and it ends with what AI creates when prompted with “the most beautiful woman in the world, according to Dove Real Beauty Ad.” The latter AI-generated images show diverse women who look far more realistic. The ad includes a brief flashback to one of the original Real Beauty ads from 2004.

 

Other than for “The Code,” Dove has not used AI to represent real people in its ads, a brand spokesperson told Ad Age.

 

The ad was created by Sao Paulo-based Soko.

 

New study, other industry efforts

 

Dove conducted a global study for its Real Beauty campaign anniversary to better understand how people’s perception of beauty has changed in the two decades since the campaign launched. It found that AI has impacted the level of pressure women feel to be a certain type of beautiful, with 39% of women surveyed saying they feel “pressure to alter their appearance because of what they see online, even when they know it’s fake or AI-generated.”

 

The study also found that 73% of women feel more pressure to be beautiful than they did eight years ago, while 85% said they’ve been exposed to harmful beauty content online. Conducted by Edelman’s data consultancy Edelman DXI between November and December 2023, researchers spoke with 33,000 respondents in 20 countries for the survey.

 

Dove isn’t the only brand that has highlighted how AI images can negatively impact women. Direct-to-consumer period underwear brand Thinx’s new “GetBodyWise” campaign, created with BBDO Los Angeles, called attention to how AI has a tendency to characterize women’s health issues as inherently shameful, due to the ways in which AI is trained by biased human input.

 

Other companies, including CVS, have also made commitments around emphasizing beauty standard authenticity in their marketing materials. In 2021, CVS announced it had reached full transparency in marking beauty imagery either with its CVS Beauty Mark, for imagery that wasn’t materially altered, or with labeling signifying “digitally altered” images.

 

“At Dove, we seek a future in which women get to decide and declare what real beauty looks like—not algorithms. As we navigate the opportunities and challenges that come with new and emerging technology, we remain committed to protect, celebrate, and champion Real Beauty,” Manfredi said.

16459: Beauty Line Reflects Beauty Standards In Cyprus..?

 

This Beauty Line video from Orb Marketing & Communications in the Republic of Cyprus takes an anti-Dove Real Beauty angle with a pro-dove diversity stance—ie, the pseudo supermodels are White as doves.

 

 

15696: Unilever And Dove Cry, “Black Hair Matters!”

 

Advertising Age spotlighted the latest patronizing propaganda from Dove—and the report’s opening paragraph underscored the ignorance and hypocrisy:

 

“A new study from Unilever’s Dove has uncovered startling findings with respect to Black girls—from as early as the age of five, they experience hair-based discrimination at schools. That statistic comes to life in a heart-tugging new spot from Ogilvy and Swift.”

 

Okay, here’s a breakdown of the ignorance and hypocrisy.

 

First, why conduct a study to uncover common knowledge? Answer: Because Unilever and Dove are culturally clueless.

 

Second, why label the findings as “startling”? Answer: Because Unilever, Dove and Advertising Age are culturally clueless.

 

Third, why assign such a project to White advertising agency Ogilvy? Answer: Because Unilever and Dove are hypocritical piles of shit.

 

Fourth, why did White advertising agency Ogilvy partner with Swift? Answer: Because Unilever, Dove and Ogilvy (having abandoned OgilvyCulture long ago) are culturally clueless and hypocritical piles of shit.

 

Fifth, why does Swift boast about being female-founded and female-run with women comprising 80% of leadership, staffed by BIPOC-identifying workers comprising 40% of the team and certified by The 3% Movement? Answer: Because the Portland-based shop can leverage such data points to land gigs with Unilever, Dove and Ogilvy—plus, get promotional PR from Ad Age.

 

Sixth, this blog has been unimpressed by Dove since it launched the Real Beauty campaign—for reasons detailed in this 2005 post. If anyone needs further evidence that Dove’s campaign is thoroughly unoriginal, check this out. No, really, check this out now.

 

Finally, there’s no doubt that Unilever, Dove, Ogilvy and Swift will take full advantage of pumping the pathetic poop during Black History Month.

 

Dove Study Finds That Girls As Young As Five Experience Race-Based Hair Discrimination

 

Brand’s latest Crown Coalition effort includes emotional ad from Ogilvy and Swift following one girl’s disheartening hair journey

 

By Ann-Christine Diaz

 

A new study from Unilever’s Dove has uncovered startling findings with respect to Black girls—from as early as the age of five, they experience hair-based discrimination at schools. That statistic comes to life in a heart-tugging new spot from Ogilvy and Swift.

 

The ad follows one young woman’s hair journey through the years, opening on a scene of her as a girl. Her father lovingly spends time styling her hair in braids, only to see her turned away at school because her hairstyle doesn’t fit into the “strict hair policy.” In high school, her teacher cautions her against wearing braids during graduation, and as a young adult, she bolts out of a job interview when she sees that her bantu knots fall into the “banned” hairstyles at the company.

 

It ends on an uplifting note, however, with the young girl’s voiceover saying, “My dad always told me I should fight for my hair. So I am.”

 

The spot is the latest in Dove’s efforts supporting The Crown Coalition, the organization it established in 2019 alongside National Urban League, Color of Change and the Center of Western Law and Poverty in an effort to end race-based hair discrimination.

 

The new research, “Dove 2021 Crown Research Study for Girls,” found that 53% of Black mothers said their daughters experienced hair discrimination. Some of those experiences began as early as the age of five. The study also found that approximately 86% of Black teens who endured hair discrimination did so by the age of 12, while 100% of Black elementary school girls in majority-white schools who said they experienced hair bias said they did so by the age of 10.

 

Dove had co-founded The Crown Coalition following its previous research that uncovered how Black women are 1.5 times more likely to be sent home from work because of their hairstyles. It also found that Black women were 80% more likely to change their natural hair to “fit” into their workplace.

 

Since its founding, The Crown Coalition has been fighting to pass The Crown Act, local and federal legislation demanding protection against such discrimination at work and in schools. Currently, only 14 states (CA, CT, CO, DE, IL, MD, NE, NM, OR, NY, NJ, NV, VA, WA) and 34 municipalities have laws against race-based hair discrimination.

 

As part of its inclusive hair efforts, Dove also recently debuted its new “Hair Love” line of products. It was inspired by the Oscar-winning and Dove-backed short created by filmmaker Matthew Cherry, a Crown Act advocate.

 

“This new body of research illuminates the pervasive nature and deep impact hair discrimination has on Black girls highlighting the horrific multi-generational impact of narrow beauty standards in America,” said Esi Eggleston Bracey, EVP and chief operating officer Unilever North America, in a statement. “These biases continue to perpetuate unfair scrutiny and discrimination against Black women and girls for wearing hairstyles inherent to our culture. This is unacceptable and why it is imperative that everyone join the movement to make hair discrimination illegal nationwide through the passage of The Crown Act.”

 

Consumers can sign a petition and see more information on The Crown Act at Dove.com/Crown.

15473: Shiny Bubbles Don’t Make Me Happy Or Make Me Feel Fine…

 

This Dove campaign from Puerto Rico translates to “Pride in every wash.” Sorry, but the responsible creative team should not be proud of this shit…

 

15077: Ogilvy, WPP And Dove Think Black Is Real Beautiful…?!

The hypocrisy of this patronizing pap from Dove is compounded by being credited to Ogilvy in Canada—a White advertising firm in the WPP network, where agency and holding company leaders openly admit to failure with Black representation in their own ranks. Also, why is a Canadian shop pontificating on the needs of America? Canuck you.

14870: The Worst Ads Of The Decade Expose The Worst Hypocrisy Of The Ad Industry.

Business Insider presented “The worst ads of the decade,” calling out 15 advertisements that broke down as follows: 8 with race- and/or ethnicity-based cluelessness, 4 with sex- and/or gender-based cluelessness and 3 with general cluelessness. The results kinda underscore the outrageousness of White women crying discrimination in the advertising industry, especially considering that White women have been co-conspirators with White men in maintaining the underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in the field—and in the campaigns.

And a special shout-out to Brad Jakeman for making the Business Insider list via the Pepsi-Kendall Jenner video. The “honor” is another example of the outrageous hypocrisy so prevalent in the industry.

14588: Dove’s Latest Bullshit Is A Real Beauty.

Adweek reported on divertsity depicted by Dove and Getty, who teamed up to create a stock photography collection that “shows women as they are, not as others believe they should be, ” and featuring “no digital distortion, just an unapologetically inclusive vision of beauty.” Oh goody! More royalty-free images for Black History Month campaigns.

Dove and Getty Launch a More-Honest Stock Photo Collection—of Women, by Women

Project #ShowUs offers a much-needed diversity update

By T.L. Stanley

There’s a reason why so many unrealistic images (think thin, white and perpetually bikini clad) get picked up and used across social media, news stories and ad campaigns—it’s possible to find empowered, diverse women in stock photography, but it’s a real slog to get there.

Dove, Getty Images and female-led creative agency Girlgaze are tackling that problem head on with Project #ShowUs, a new collection of 5,000 photos that, they creators say, “shows women as they are, not as others believe they should be.” In other words, there’s “no digital distortion, just an unapologetically inclusive vision of beauty.”

Originating in 39 countries, the photos come from 116 female, non-binary and female-identifying photographers, and, in a first for Getty, the 179 subjects have created their own search descriptions and tags for their images, “so she is defining how she wants to be seen, on her own terms.” (Some of those terms include “blackgirlmagic,” “bosslady” and “enlightened.”)

Don’t expect cheesy representations like “women laughing alone with salad” to go away overnight. But with options like these available, it’s harder to make excuses for falling back on tropes and publishing stereotypical shots. And that’s the point — to make it easier and quicker to find culturally relevant images of a wide variety of confident, successful, kickass females.

Dove, with its long “Real Women” history, commissioned a study of 9,000 women and released its stats to bolster the launch of the photo collection. The numbers are sobering, exposing what Sophie Galvani, global vp of the Unilever brand, called “an appearance anxiety epidemic.”

Women have long reported a blow to their self-esteem because of unrealistic imagery in media, and that figure doubled in the past decade (rising from 14 percent to 36 percent), the research found. On a global scale, 70 percent of women don’t feel accurately represented by the images they see everyday, and 71 percent wish media and advertisers did a better job in portraying age, race, shape and size.

At the same time, searches for a broader swath of women have been increasing, Getty says. “Real people” searches climbed by 192 percent in the past year, “diverse women” by 168 percent, “strong women” by 187 percent” and “women leaders” by 202 percent.

Girlgaze founder Amanda de Cadenet called the project “a game-changing initiative,” and Getty Images’ Rebecca Swift predicted that it will “break visual cliches on an unprecedented scale.”

Getty execs say they hope to double the size of the collection by next year.

It’s another advance in a broader long-fought battle against a stock photo industry that’s often seen as less-than thoughtful. PETA’s years-long concerted effort to wipe out imagery of primates in “unnatural” settings and poses (chimps riding bikes and wearing makeup, for instance) paid off as services like Getty and Shutterstock vowed last year to take those photos out of circulation.